Not going back to era of ballot papers: CEC Arora

NEW DELHI: Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora on Thursday slammed the “motivated slugfest” over EVMs and asserted that the Election Commission was not going to be intimidated into giving up EVMs and returning to the age of ballot boxes.

The robust defence of EVMs comes days after 'cyber-expert' Syed Shuja, at a press conference in London via Skype, made unsubstantiated claims that EVMs were rigged during 2014 Lok Sabha poll to manipulate results.

Acting on EC's request, Delhi Police had registered a case under Section 505 (1)(b) of IPC (statement conducing to public mischief) following Shuja's alleged claims.

Addressing an international conference on 'Making our Elections Inclusive and Accessible' here, Arora said EVM had been made into a football, with the machine certified as 'right' if result was X and faulted if the result was Y.

"We had one result in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. We had a totally different result four months later in Delhi state elections. Since then we have had elections in Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tripura, Nagaland , Mizoram, and now Chhattisgarh, MP, Telangana, Rajasthan. May be one or two states are left, including some by-elections to the Lok Sabha. The results have been completely different in different times," noted the CEC.


Asserting that EVMs and VVPATs shall continue to be in use, Arora said," We are open to any criticism, any feedback from any stakeholders, including the political parties because they are the biggest stakeholders but at the same time, we are not going to be intimidated or bullied or pressurised, or coerced, into giving up these and start the era of ballot boxes".

Only recently, at a rally in Kolkata, many opposition party leaders had questioned EVMs. Later, a committee comprising Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav, BSP's SC Mishra and AAP's Arvind Kejriwal was constituted to raise EVM issues with EC.

Arora on Saturday EVMs had the backing of ECs in the past, present and future, and wondered why they had been made a "football". "Let me make it very, very clear once more ... we are not going back to that era where we have ballot papers being lifted, musclemen being employed, besides the delay in counting and also too much harassment of polling staff on the ground".

Citing the recent state elections, Arora recalled that there were all of six incidents involving EVM issues reported from 1.76 lakh booths across five states.

"Actions were taken swiftly and they met their nemesis in 24-48 hours ... we are not happy even with those six incidents". Stating the EVMs had been used for almost two decades and were here to stay, he said VVPATs being of recent origin had been witnessing some issues as this was a trial by learning.

"We have a committee supervised by some of the foremost technocrats and scientists who oversee every aspect of manufacturing or EVMs and VVPATs," he said adding that even EVM makers BEL and ECIL were led by technocrats, with one involved in a sensitive naval programme and another that the industry and peer group looked up to.