New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday asked the Election Commission (EC) to reconsider the terms set for next week’s electronic voting machine (EVM) challenge and allow it to be an open “hackathon” where tampering of any kind can be demonstrated.
An AAP delegation, which visited the Election Commission, told the poll panel that it would be “worrying” if the event disallows tampering of EVMs.
“We would like to strongly urge you to reconsider the terms of the EVM challenge. Please do not set any such rules and regulations and allow it to be an open hackathon where tampering of any kind can be demonstrated on the machine,” AAP’s national secretary Pankaj Gupta said in a letter to chief election commissioner Nasim Zaidi.
AAP, along with other parties, has pointed to tampering of EVMs as a major reason behind their defeat in the recent state assembly and civic body polls. AAP also “demonstrated” in the Delhi legislative assembly how EVMs can be “tampered” with.
Gupta also alleged that the tampering with the motherboards in EVMs was the reason behind Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) wins in the recent assembly and civic body polls. In response to the allegations, the EC organised an EVM challenge on 3 June in which political parties can test machines deployed in the recently held assembly polls.
The challenge would be open only to national and state parties, which contested assembly polls in five states — Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab. They would not be allowed to change the motherboard of EVMs and take the machines home to prove at a later date that they can be tampered with.
The Commission said with a changed chip, an EVM would no longer be the “ECI-EVM” but simply a look-alike. “This is not an issue related to just one party, it is a question of safeguarding democracy in this country. We urge you to take the right decision in the long-term interests of this nation,” Gupta said.