Eight political parties have responded to the Election Commission’s open challenge to tamper Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), but only Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and CPI(M) has shown interest in participating.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress have raised some questions on the existing framework of the challenge, which starts on June 3, but have not expressed their interest in participating.
The CPI, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya lok Dal (RlD) expressed their interest in observing (the challenge) while the All India NR Congress, a regional party formed by former Puducherry Chief Minister N Rangaswamy, wrote that it will not participate in the challenge.
An EC spokesperson said only the NCP will participate in the open challenge. The Commission will bring EVMs used in the recent Assembly polls in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand for challenge. Sources said that the open challenge for EVMs’ tampering will be held on June 3 between 10 am and 2pm.
Terming the EC’s EVM-hacking challenge a “drama”, AAP’s Pankaj Sharma on Friday said that it will not participate in the event. In a letter to the poll watchdog, the AAP said that it had promised a ‘hackathon’ but with “rules and regulations”. “Hackers are invited to test the security of any system, using any tools available. Such ethical hacking is to help understand loopholes, so that they can be removed in the future,” it said. It wondered why the EC — “an institution that has always protected democracy” — was not ready for an open hackathon to safeguard the country’s election process.
The letter to Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi, was in response to EC’s rejection of AAP’s demand that it be allowed to “tamper” with the EVM’s motherboard at the challenge. “Why is the Election Commission running away from no-holds barred hackathon,” it asked.
For its part, the Congress on Friday said the terms and conditions attached by the EC to an EVM tampering were a “barrier to a thorough test” of the voting machines and called for relaxation in three such rules for the challenge.
In a letter to the EC, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala said the challengers should be allowed access to all the components of an (EVMs, including the motherboard. Observing that a “fair challenge” will send a strong signal to the people about the credibility of EVMs, Surjewala urged the commission to revise the conditions.