Train to check EVM ‘rigging’, a spooked Congress tells state units

NEW DELHI: Going beyond political rhetoric about electronic voting machines, Congress has asked its state units to carry out “intensive training” of leaders to be deputed for Election Commission-mandated checking of EVMs in the run-up to elections.

According to an AICC directive to Congress state presidents, they should focus on checking of EVMs that the EC allows to political parties in four stages, the first being well ahead of voting and the last being an hour before polling.

“An intensive training needs to be organised to select Congress leaders who will be deployed to each of the EVM checking events,” it says.

The training being referred to by Congress would focus on what aspects of the machine should the agents look at to ensure that the machines are tamper proof.

Sources said state units have been asked to engage “master trainers” who would educate the polling agents. It is likely to be held for every booth for Lok Sabha polls. Among other things, the machines would be checked for “proper sealing” that is done before and after polling, and “unsealing” done for voting.

The enhanced focus on polling machines comes in the backdrop of the attack by opposition parties including Congress on the use of EVMs in elections, with repeated requests to the EC that they revert to ballot papers.

AICC spokesman Manish Tewari said, “The issue is not whether EVMs can be rigged or not. There is a perception that machines can impinge upon the integrity of the voting process. If majority of stakeholders feel we should revert to paper ballots, what is the difficulty for the EC in accepting the demand?”

While the EC has refused to revert to the old system, Congress and allies have suggested an alternative — the EC count 50% of paper ballots attached to the machines, known as VVPAT, in every constituency.

After polling concluded in MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in December elections, Congress picked on news reports about “mishandling” of machines to allege attempt by the then-BJP state governments to rig the polls.

Congress won in all three states, which led to strong criticism by BJP that the rival was only trying to muddy the waters by making motivated allegations about the machines.

Crucially, Congress has also directed the state units to “take the updation of voter lists seriously”. The party made much noise about “fake voters” in the three states that went to polls last month, even taking its allegations to the Supreme Court. Later, revelations about alleged 22 lakh missing voters in Telangana led to a slanging match between the Congress and the EC.