Electronic Voting Machines have been used by the electoral system in India since 1982 and finally in Lok Sabha elections in 2004. However, it seems ever since Congress started losing elections, EVMs have become an easy target to deflect the blame. Since 2014, Congress has repeatedly blamed EVMs for losing elections. The trend continues in the 2019 elections as well. With the completion of the second phase of polls and Congress has realized the ground realities and is once again targeted the EVMs to hide their electoral failures. This time, Sam Pitroda came out with an absurd and somewhat hilarious stand on EVMs.
Sam Pitroda, Indian Overseas Congress Chief: As an engineer, as technical expert, I'm not satisfied with EVM (Electronic Voting Machine), but I've not been able to pinpoint because we don't have EVM. If someone gives us EVM to study for 1 year, we'll be able to tell you something pic.twitter.com/eAcfcnwNbt
— ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2019
Sam Pitroda said, “You will have to understand the design, the software….But one thing is for sure, there is something wrong with it. We do not know what is wrong with it.” Sam Pitroda further added that being a technical expert he would require a year to decide what is wrong with the Electronic Voting Machines.
Congress has recently submitted around 33 complains to the Election Commission regarding the glitches in the EVMs at some polling booths in Maharashtra’s 10 Lok Sabha seats where voting took place. It is evident that Congress is aware of where the course of the 2019 election is heading to. Congress Party has understood that the voters have lost faith in the party and they are not voting them to form the government at centre. It is therefore using EVMs as an excuse to explain its eventual loss.
The accusations about the glitches are a desperate attempt of the Congress party to save its sinking ship. They have no methods available to win the Lok Sabha elections. They have already disappointed the majority by hurting their sentiments on various occasions. The minorities understand that Congress is just using them as vote banks and is not really concerned in their welfare. The wind for Congress is blowing in the opposite direction and it is a rough sailing for the party. All odds are against Congress, and now they are trying to rescue themselves with issue like glitches in EVMs.
In 2004, no such demand was made by the Congress to recheck the EVMs, nor was such demand made in 2009. It was because the corrupt Congress Party was in power in both the terms. In 2017, the Congress Party had appealed the Supreme Court to direct the Election commission for review of 25% of the EVMs and VVPATs. The Supreme Court had dismissed Congress’s plea. Congress has time and again tried to find loopholes in the electoral reforms and process to pave its own way to win elections. The party fails to understand that elections in a country are not won by challenging the electoral process but by working for the nation, which Congress in the past 60 years of its rule failed to do. The comments by Sam Pitroda are an indication of the fact that Congress has lost the plot within just two phases of the election.