Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati has said that she was confident that the ruling BJP at the Centre would be humiliated during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls if the polling is held using ballot papers and not the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

Dalit leader and former Uttar Pradesh chief-minister Mayawati was commenting on the BJP’s landslide victories during the recent local body polls in the State in which it won 14 out of the 16 Corporations, leaving the remaining two for Mayawati's BSP.  Congress and Samajwadi Party (SP) were humbled at the local-body polls.

"If the BJP is really honest and if it believed in democracy, let it conduct the 2019 Lok Sabha polls using ballot papers instead of using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).  If elections are conducted in this manner, the BJP can never hope to get vicorious," she asserted.  U.P. Deputy chief-minister Dinesh Sharma has retorted by stating that the BJP would win irrespective of ballot paper/EVM polls.

"Unlike other parties, we work for all the communities and not only for any particular community's welfare," Sharma added.  Mayawati’s comments came in the wake of several opposition political parties claiming that the BJP had somehow ‘doctored’ the EVMs in such a manner that irrespective of whichever party’s symbol was pressed, the vote would be registered on behalf of the BJP.