The Election Commission on Saturday made it clear that EVM challenge will be conducted within the framework of the existing administrative safeguards and security protocols. The commission said that it had never made a 'promise' to hold a “no-holds-barred hackathon” when it announced the EVM hacking challenge.
Responding to the charges of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress that the EC was turning tail on a “promised no-holds-barred hackathon”, the poll panel specified that changing internal circuit of electronic device is like changing device itself.
“EVM challenge will be conducted within the framework of existing administrative safeguards and security protocols,” the EC reiterated.
The AAP had objected to the “rules and regulations” imposed by the EC in its planned hackathon. The party demanded that its representative be allowed to “tamper” with the EVM motherboard at the challenge.
AAP, along with the Congress have decided to skip the event, insisting that the ground rules were far too restrictive. All that challengers can do under the commission’s rules is to press the buttons of any four voting machines that were used in the Assembly elections.
Only the left party and the Nationalist Congress had applied to participate in the challenge to be held between 10 am and 2 pm on June 3. Though RJD made a last-minute dash to participate, it missed the commission’s deadline (Friday 5 pm ).
Meanwhile, the AAP has decided to dispatch its technocrat MlA Sourabh Bhardwaj to Bostwana to take first hand account of the hackathon.
On Saturday, Bharadwaj declared that he will come out with the "truth" about the hackathon in Botswana.
“I will be live from Africa on Aam Aadmi Party Facebook page today at 5 pm. Truth about Bostwana (African Country) EVMs and Hackathon,” he said in a tweet that was retweeted by all AAP leaders including CM Kejriwal.