Chhattisgarh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Subrat Sahoo said Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) cannot be hacked and whatever statements related to hacking of EVMs are mere rumours and baseless.
He was addressing a group of around 90 students from Raipur-based private engineering college students who raised doubts about reports related to EVM.
Election Commission of India has already announced reward to a person who proves that EVM can be hacked but till date no one has done it. EVM is totally safe. To hack any device, it should have connectivity but it is not present in the EVM.
The engineering students were introduced on the election process preparations, call centre, media certification and monitoring committee based electronic media cell, social media cell, newspapers monitoring cell, photo-exhibition among others. They were also shown the operational aspects of EVM and VVPAT too.
Sahoo explained before students that Commission works under its constitutional powers. It enforces election model code of conduct for equal opportunity for all and any violation invites action under different election rules and sections.
He added as election process has to be completed as per schedule, the ground level employees deputed for polls are imparted regular training.
Till date in different batches around 553 students have visited the CEO office as part of their study tour. Sahoo also administered them pledge to cast their vote.