The Indian Panorama

Tag: BSP Mayawati

  • SUPREME COURT NOTICE TO CENTRE, EC ON EVM ROW

    SUPREME COURT NOTICE TO CENTRE, EC ON EVM ROW

    NEW DELHI (TIP): Amid raging controversy over authenticity of electronic voting machines (EVMs), the Supreme Court on April 13 issued notices to the Centre and the Election Commission on petitions alleging that EVMs can be easily hacked to favour a particular candidate or a political party. The petitions demanded paper trail on all EVMs.

    A Bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar asked the NDA government and the EC to respond to the petition filed by the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party MLA Ataur Rehman by May 8, the next date of hearing.

    After tasting poll defeat, BSP chief Mayawati and AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had alleged that EVMs were tampered with. The BSP alleged that large-scale tampering of EVMs helped the BJP to win the UP Assembly polls. The Congress and Trinamool Congress told the court that they, too, wanted to be heard in the matter.

    “The views of technicians working in this field are important and not of what political parties say,” the Bench told senior counsel P Chidambaram who appeared for both the BSP and Rehman. The Bench said EVMs were a remedy to several ills that plagued the voting system before it was introduced. Chidambaram pointed out that a 2013 verdict of the SC made it mandatory for the EC to install VVPAT. Despite the EC writing to the government 10 times since June last, including the Chief Election Commissioner’s letter to the Prime Minister, the government didn’t release funds for paper trail machines. “They need Rs 3,000 crore for having this system,” he told the Bench.

    He, however, chose to withdraw the BSP’s prayer for deferring forthcoming elections until paper trail machines were made available after the Bench said it would not like to get drawn into political controversies.

    On behalf of the Congress, senior counsel Kapil Sibal said EVMs were not used in any democracy, except a couple of countries in latin America. “But, this system was introduced when your party was in power,” the Bench commented. Noting that it would not decide the issue on the basis of which country was using or not using it, the Bench said: “We would purely go on the basis of law and technical data.”

  • EVMs tamper-proof, says EC

    EVMs tamper-proof, says EC

    NEW DELHI (TIP): With losing parties alleging rigging of results in the recently concluded Assembly elections by tampering with electronic voting machines (EVMs), the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday reiterated these were tamper-proof, as ever, and the integrity of poll process was preserved.

    “ECI unequivocally reiterate that given the effective technical and administrative safeguards, EVMs are not tamperable and integrity of the electoral process is preserved,” the EC said in a statement.

    Strongly rejecting the charges levelled by BSP leader Mayawati and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal, the EC said, “At this stage, baseless, speculative and wild allegations are being made which deserves to be rejected.”

    The commission said it did not receive specific complaints or concrete material from political parties and candidates about alleged tampering with EVMs during the elections and went on to add: “BSP’s representation on EVM tampering was without any specific allegation and it had already rejected the claim of the party”.

    “Such concerns about alleged tamperability of ECI-EVM have been raised earlier also since their introduction, including before the high court and the Supreme Court,” it said.

    Since 2000, EVMs had been used in 107 elections to state legislative assemblies and three Lok Sabha elections held in 2004, 2009 and 2014, the EC said. But in 2009, in a case before the Delhi High Court, all earlier allegations about EVM tamperability were raised. The court then satisfied itself with a detailed reply of the EC as to why EVM cannot be rigged.

    It was then decided that the EC would put in efforts to develop Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and thus the court disposed of the case in 2012. Sources in the EC, however, said, the panel would need Rs 3,174 crore for introducing VVPATs for the General Elections in 2019, as about 15.5 lakh machines would need to be enabled. The manufacturers BEL and ECIL would require 30 months to deliver needed VVPATs.