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The limitations of an electronic voting machine (EVM) have begun to surface well before the actual polling for elections to the 403-member state assembly of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, in February.
"With each EVM configured to take a maximum of 16 names in a ballot paper, we are in for a crisis in some 171 assembly constituencies where the number of nominations filed exceed the machine's upper limit," a senior election official told rediff.com.
With 6615 candidates having filed their nominations until the deadline of January 23, UP has beaten all past records.
The last assembly election in 1996 had seen 6138 nominations. Even after scrutiny and withdrawals, there were as many as 4429 still in the fray for the 425 constituencies in the undivided Uttar Pradesh (22 seats were transferred to the new hill state of Uttaranchal).
It is common knowledge that the large numbers were attributable to filing of nominations by many 'dummies' - who will contest the poll in case the nominations papers of the main candidate is rejected.
"All political parties field dummy candidates as independents who, being eligible to all the rights and privileges of a candidate, provide a helping hand to a party's official nominee. There is no law under which we can deny anybody the opportunity to file a nomination," explained Lucknow District Magistrate Jeevesh Nandan.
The solution lies in immediate procurement of an additional 60,000 - 70,000 EVMs, which officials say, is no mean task given the time in hand. "In that event we may even have to postpone the polling in some areas," the official said.
"Even though we had made a provision for 13,000 extra EVMs - the actual requirement is of 117,000 EVMs - these would not suffice," he pointed out.
UP's chief election officer Noor Mohammad is optimistic. "A lot of candidates would withdraw their nominations for which the last date is January 28."
But he did not rule out the need for additional EVMs.
"Our ballot papers too are designed in consonance with the EVMs. We had made a provision in case the number of candidates exceed 16."
"However, we did not imagine that we would run out of EVMs," he told rediff.com.
"Political parties should come forward and ensure withdrawal of dummy candidatures in the larger interest of the state and the elections," Mohammad added.
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