After “proving” that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) could be tampered by hacking a prototype machine in the Delhi Assembly, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAM) claimed that the political parties have come forward to join hands with them against their fight to do away with this kind of ballot system in India.
The party will take other political parties into confidence to “mark five constituencies” suspected with EVM tampering during voting, while demanding the Election Commission (EC) to constitute an all-party committee to investigate the tampering of EVMs in the recently held elections across India.
“We have proved in the Assembly that the EVMs could be tampered now the question is have EVMs been hacked. We demand an all-party committee by EC. It could have members from various parties with an AAP member with technical expertise to prove and show whether the EVMs have been tampered,” AAP leader and MlA Greater Kailash Sourabh Bhardwaj said.
An AAP insider said that five political parties came forward a day after the AAP legislator carried a live demonstration in the floor of the Delhi Assembly on May 09.
Bhardwaj said: “We will ask political parties, for example, Samajwadi Party to name five polling booths where there is suspicion that rigging must have happened. Then, we will ask EC to provide the EVMs used in those particular polling booths…there are many technical ways through which AAP experts will prove whether the EVM was tampered or not. The debate by EC till now was that there is no chip like a sim card or any hardware present that could be tampered but now by hacking into an EVM, we have proved it can be done. Now, we will show whether the EVMs used were tampered.”
Bhardwaj had claimed that voting machines can be manipulated by simply feeding it with a “secret code”. Calling for the attention of the public, Bhardwaj said EVM tampering is “real” but to get the common people of India accept the “truth”, it might take time but it “must be addressed,” he added. “EVM manipulation is a very serious issue. It is danger to the democracy of the country,” he said. The EC has called an all party meeting on the raging issue on Friday at its headquarters here.
AAP has vociferously raised the issue after its disappointing performance in Punjab and Goa Assembly elections and the recent civic polls in city. Meanwhile, hundreds of AAP workers and volunteers demonstrated outside the EC headquarters demanding that voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT)-equipped EVMs be used in future elections.
“Why is it that all the technical defects in EVMs that have come to light recently, say in Bhind or Dholpur, favoured only the BJPIJ” Bhardwaj asked.
The AAP is deputing Bhardwaj along with two technical experts at the meeting called by the EC.
The party’s newly-appointed Delhi convenor, Gopal Rai, who spearheaded the protest, led a delegation to the EC. It met EC officials and handed over a letter addressed to Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi. Asked why they thought EVMs could be rigged, the protesters, many of whom carried replicas of EVM machines, mostly cited Bhardwaj’s live demonstration in the Assembly.