Tamil Nadu is the only state where EVM burnt memory checks have been sought this time and only four such applications have been filed before the Election Commission of India, ET has gathered.
The number of election petitions filed in state high courts, challenging the election processes, are also minimal. Former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has filed one for Bhawanipore constituency over the counting process.
Typically, fiercely-fought elections, especially those ousting a political dispensation, as seen in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, are followed by a series of election petitions and since 2024, by EVM memory check applications by defeated candidates.
The case in point: Maharashtra. In the aftermath of a heavily-contested assembly election in Maharashtra in November 2024, a record 104 C&V applications were filed across 95 constituencies seeking verification of 755 EVMs. As many as 50 election petitions were also filed challenging the assembly election results.
Seven EVM memory check applications were filed in 2024 by losing candidates in Haryana (6) and Jammu & Kashmir (1) and all but one of them were caught in election petitions. However, the EVM and its vote verification, which was once a central focus of post-election political debates, does not seem to have found as much political favour this time from across the political parties.
Much may have to do with the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which has become the new site of political contest.That was seen first in the case of Bihar — the state that first embarked on SIR. Even as opposition parties strongly raised concerns over alleged SIR discrepancies, not a single application for EVM burnt memory or microcontroller verification was filed by any defeated candidate across the 243 assembly constituencies of Bihar and in the assembly constituencies during the by-elections across states after the 2025 assembly polls, the ECI had then said.
The EVM C&V mechanism — a first such process to reaffirm faith in the electoral machines — came into effect following the SC directions of 26.04.2024, amid Lok Sabha polls. It allows two runners up/losing candidates to seek burnt memory verification in about 5% of the EVMs per assembly constituencies for suspected ‘tampering or modification’, within seven days of counting day.
The C&V process has not revealed any discrepancy so far. The C&V process started with the Lok Sabha 2024 elections when applications were moved in just eight of the 543 parliamentary constituencies across six states, involving 92 polling stations.
This first round of EVM checks, including eight of the Lok Sabha elections and three each in Odisha/Andhra Pradesh assembly polls respectively, gave the machine a clean chit. The same had been the case of the Sirsa C&V in Haryana.
