AAP tries to drown bribery din in EVM hack clamour

The BSP and AAP had alleged that the machines used in the recent assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab were tampered with and favoured the BJP.

Conducting a mock poll on an EVM machine, Bhardwaj demonstrated how despite giving two votes each to various parties, the finally count showed that the votes of some parties had been transferred to one party. The party remained cryptic about from where it procured the machine used for demonstration.

The demonstration comes at a time when the party, struggling to recover from the series of poll debacles has further been hit by a rebellion with former Minister Kapil Mishra accusing Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of accepting cash. “The commission has proposed that there should be a specific section enabling the commission to take appropriate action, including countermanding of elections”, EC agenda note says.

Last month, sixteen opposition parties had urged the Election Commission to revert to the paper ballot system saying that the alleged tampering has created trust deficit in the credibility of the EVMs.

The poll panel of the Commission invited representatives of seven national parties and 48 state-level parties for the meeting at the Constitution Club in New Delhi on Friday.

In a live demonstration yesterday in Delhi, AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj claimed that any voter can feed code into EVMs to see the results. “The commission has promised that all the EVMs will be linked to VVPAT by September 2018”, Tiruchi Siva said. The EC has rejected AAP’s claims saying, the machine used by the party to demonstrate rigging, was a ‘duplicate gadget’.

“AAP MLAs are mocking at democracy – another stunt to divert public attention from Kejriwal’s corruption”, the BJP said in a statement. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia who attended the all party meeting said his party was game.

Mr Zaidi said that VVPATs of EVMs upto a definite percentage determined by the Commission will also be subjected to counting and it will evolve an appropriate framework in this regard. It said paper trail machines with all EVMs in future elections was fine. “Polls should be held only on VVPAT-enabled machines so that paper trail guarantees integrity of the electoral process”, he wrote. “To make the election process more transparent, the commission has made proposal for electoral reforms on misuse of money power and bribery during elections”, he added.

The VVPAT-equipped EVMs dispense a paper slip which helps voters confirm that their vote has indeed gone to the candidate of their choice.