The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday alleged that its political opponents would “attempt to open strongrooms housing EVMs and manipulate or replace the machines” and requested the Election Commission (EC) to increase security at the strongrooms.
In a letter written to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on Monday, AAP national spokesperson Raghav Chadha said, “I have received information from credible sources that our political opponents have planned attempts to gerrymander with EVMs either on the night of May 21 or May 22, ahead of the actual counting on May 23.”
“I have strong reasons to believe that our political adversaries will attempt to open strongrooms housing EVMs and manipulate or replace machines as a handful of such incidents in the past have been witnessed,” it read. AAP also requested the CEC to appoint another independent observer to oversee the safety and security of the EVMs.
“We request that the CRPF security at Jijabai Institute, where South Delhi’s EVMs are housed be tightened. It is further requested that additional CRPF personnel be deployed to keep watch on the strong rooms round the clock,” it said.
Restrict movement
Apart from this, Mr. Chadha requested that all unnecessary movements in and around the premises of strong rooms, in which EVMs are kept, should be restricted and the rooms should only be opened after all the candidates are informed at a fixed timing.
“You may recall the municipal election of 2017, when in a ward falling within South Delhi parliamentary constituency, strong rooms were violated and seals were broken prior to the day assigned for counting,” the letter also read.
On Saturday, AAP had complained to the CEC that there have been “recreation and reseal of the polling diaries and manipulation of relevant information contained in them, the objective of which is not known”. These diaries are used to note hourly activities at a booth on the polling day.
AAP alleged that EVMs had been compromised multiple times in the past and it helped the BJP to win elections.