NEW DELHI: The leaders of 22 opposition parties met the Election Commission on Tuesday ahead of the 

Lok Sabha election results and asked it to ensure transparency and fairness in the counting process by verifying EVM results with VVPATs.

The opposition leaders, including from the Congress, the DMK, the TDP and the BSP, submitted a memorandum to the poll panel, demanding the tallying of votes of electronic voting machines with a paper trail of votes (VVPATs) of five randomly identified polling booths in an assembly segment before counting begins on Thursday.

Before meeting the poll panel, the leaders met at the Constitution Club to discuss the current political situation and the need for fairness in the counting process. They held talks after meeting the Election Commission as well and decided they would be in constant touch with each other on counting day and after that too to discuss possibilities of forming a coalition government, an opposition leader told PTI.

"It is requested that the verification of VVPAT slips of randomly identified (05) polling stations should be done prior to the initiation of counting of votes and not after the completion of last round of counting.

"If any discrepancy is found anywhere during the VVPAT verification, 100% counting of paper slips of VVPATs of all polling stations of that assembly segment should be done," the memorandum to the Election Commission stated