Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu urged the Election Commission to count votes through Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) instead of EVMs during counting for the Lok Sabha polls.
At an event held for discussing measures to increase transparency in elections, Naidu said, "The Election Commission has allowed for five per cent random matching of EVMs in an assembly segment with VVPAT. The poll watch body has argued that the matching cannot be exceeded to 50 per cent because it will take six additional days to declare the result of the polls. I am asking why can't the Election Commission counts VVPAT directly instead of counting EVMs, which I feel is a more complicated process."
"The officials will count EVMs first then they will check 5 per cent of EVMs with VVPAT. After this, if there is any discrepancy is found then they will take VVPAT count as final. If such is the case then why can't the officials directly count VVPAT trails," he added.
Earlier on Friday Naidu hit out at the Election Commission, calling it a 'biased body' which gave "controversial and pro-government decisions".
Naidu made the remarks after a meeting with Chief Election Commission Sunil Arora regarding repolling in five polling stations under the Chittoor parliamentary constituency in Andhra Pradesh on May 19.
The counting of votes for the Lok Sabha polls will take place on May 23.