The Supreme Court on 15 December refused to entertain a plea of the Gujarat Congress seeking counting of at least 20 percent of the paper trail slips manually along with votes cast in the EVMs in each constituency of the state.
It said that the court cannot interfere unless the Election Commission of India's decision to restrict the EVM-VVPAT paper trail to one booth per constituency is proved "arbitrary", "illegal" or "malafide".
PAAS leader Hardik Patel said he didn’t agree with the SC’s stand on the issue. He asked, “Why are VVPATs used in the first place? It is used for smooth counting of votes wherever there is a fault.” He also said that if the EVMs don’t malfunction then BJP will lose the election, adding that he had a “100 percent doubt on EVMs.”