Ten persons were arrested in Bankura and West Midnapore districts today for making fake Electronic Voting Machines (EVM).
While six persons were arrested from Raghunathpur area of Bankura district, four were arrested from Pingla and Chandrakona town of West Midnapore district for making fake EVMs, officials said.
Supporters and opponents alike have acknowledged that the alternative vote would never be introduced for Westminster elections after the proposal received a thumping defeat in the national referendum. With 439 of the 440 voting areas counted, the no campaign had established a lead of 68% to 32%, another wounding blow to Nick Clegg, whose Liberal Democrats had secured a referendum as one of their cherished prizes in negotiations with the Conservatives to form the coalition last year.
Matthew Elliott, campaign director of No to AV, said: “Tonight’s result is an emphatic victory, a clear signal from every part of the country that people want to keep our simple, fair and effective system for electing MPs. I believe this result settles the debate over changing our electoral system for another generation.”
After a long and twadry campaign on both sides where partisan politics and persoanlities took centre stage, the UK electorate has rejected the Alternative Vote (AV) system by a thumping majority of 67.9% to 32.1%. The final vote tallied at 6,152,607 voted Yes to the Alternative Vote, while 13,013,123 voted No, according to the official Electoral Commission announcement. Only 10 areas in the UK including Islington, Camden, Hackney and Lambeth in London voted for the change to AV.
This hurts the Liberal Democrats and Nick Clegg – the referendum was the prize for joinining a coalition that would have to make tough decisions, hoping a Yes vote would change the political alignment of the country. Instead, they got a crushing defeat and at the hands of the Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr. Cameron joined the campaign barely a month ago and in one month the polls went from favouring Yes to a massive win for the NO campaign.