Three days before the all-party meeting called by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to discuss the concerns over electronic voting machines’ (EVMs) reliability, the AAP on Tuesday conducted a mock poll inside the Delhi Assembly to back its allegations that EVMs can be “hacked” and claimed “such rigging” has led to BJP’s successive wins in the recent elections across the country. To lend credence to the whole exercise in the House, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party had invited representatives of the CPI (M), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD, Trinamool Congress (TMC), Janata Dal (U) and Samajwadi Party to see EVMs hacking. CPI-M leader Nilotpal Basu, RJD’s Manoj Jha and leader from the TMC were seen seated in the gallery to see the live demo.
In course, the AAP dared the BJP-led Centre and the ECI that given a chance it can get the EVMs “tampered” through its engineers within 30 hours and in poll-bound Gujarat it requires “just three hours” for the same, before the House adopted a resolution demanding that every election in the country henceforth be held using voter-verified paper audit trail or VVPAT slips as directed by the Supreme Court.
The AAP government appealed to President of India and the ECI to tally the votes polled and those recorded through EVMs with the VVPAT record in at least 25 per cent of polling booths randomly picked in each constituency.
Referring to row over Bhind, Dholpur, Chattarpur and Mumbai civic elections, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said, “The ECI can’t evade the questions. EVMs can be hacked and have been hacked and just takes 90 seconds, especially when the entire election, police machinery is under your control. I challenge the BJP that AAP with its 10 engineers can hack all EVMs in 30 hours and we need three hours to access the machines in Gujarat for the same servicing (hacking).”
Full Article: Assembly passes resolution on use of VVPAT slips as directed by SC.