Rights activist Ajay Dubey on Wednesday urged the State Election Commission to cancel the upcoming civic elections in the State. Questioning credibility of the electronic voting machines (EVMs) Dubey alleged that the Commission was wittingly moving ahead to conduct the Corporation elections in Bhopal, Indore, Chhindwara and Jabalpur municipalities despite its frequent reported malfunctions. He also claimed several Collectors have already expressed their discontent over credibility of the EVMs.
Dubey, in a statement, said, “The Madhya Pradesh SEC is entreating before the Electronic Corporation of India limited (ECIl), regarding defective EVMs while the Bhopal Collector has also confirmed in writing to the SEC that the EVMs are defective.” Dubey said elections for nine corporations and over 200 municipalities was held in November 2014 and during those elections many officials raised doubts over the credibility of these EVMs. The Collectors of Gwalior and Dewas made written complaints to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) - SEC, R Parsuram informing the details about the defects of EVMs.
He said observing the bad condition of the sensitive election system they wrote to Parsuram with proof requesting to make public the complaints received and also the action taken by SEC over the malfunctioning of EVMs, but Parsuram has not met their demand and failed to make public the required information. He said the documents obtained through RTI reveal how the supplier of the latest model EVMs purchased at a cost of Rs150 crore and through that SEC has taken the responsibility of conducting the coming elections when contacted after the machines were found faulty did not even attended the call of Parsuram for three days in time of difficulty.