[dropcap]T[/dropcap]WENTY-ONE political parties today filed a review petition before the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Election Commission to increase Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) sample audits to 50 per cent..The Supreme Court on April 8, 2019 had directed the Election Commission to increase the number of EVMs subjected to checks from one per assembly/constituency segment to five in this Lok Sabha election..The Election Commission in its affidavit had earlier submitted before the Court that covering 50 per cent VVPATs would increase the time required for counting to about six days..In a press conference on Tuesday, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, along with other Opposition leaders demanded counting of 50 per cent of the VVPAT slips. He said, "Our battle is to strengthen the democratic process. We have filed a review petition in the Supreme Court with a plea that 50 per cent VVPAT slips must be counted and in case of discrepancy in the count of EVM and VVPAT slips, the results for slips should be upheld".
