Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora while speaking at the annual business conclave at IIM-Calcutta on Saturday has again exposed the EVM conspiracy theorists. He said “malfunctioning is very different from tampering. The electronic voting machines (EVMs) cannot be tinkered with. If you say otherwise, you have a criminal intent, which we deeply resent,”
The CEC also added “The EVMs were made in a secure environment and distinguished emeritus professors of reputed institutes have supervised the entire process.”
CEC Sunil Arora comments come in the wake of the opposition parties trying to hijack the spotlight by propelling the conspiracy theory around EVMs. While elections have provided with a conclusive verdict opposition parties have taken refuge behind these frivolous claims against the EVMs.
“This is more than unfair. When you lose why make the machine a flogging object? ” the CEC also said.
Earlier, MNS Chief Raj Thackeray had also met West Bengal Chief minister who had also demanded the EVMs to be replaced by ballots. “I’ve come here to invite Mamata ji for a rally scheduled in Maharashtra on August 21 to demand bringing back ballots in place of EVMs. This will be an anti-EVM movement. She is one of the key leaders in the country, voicing concern against EVMs,” MNS chief told reporters with WB CM as she indicated her support for the cause.
Senior NCP leader Sharad Pawar had also called for EVMs to be replaced by ballot papers. “Doubts are being raised over the use of EVMs. Such things should not happen in a democracy. Various parties and organizations have expressed concerns over the use of the machines,” NCP leader told reporters in Mumbai he added “We urge the people to flag the demand of holding the election using ballot papers,” the NCP leader added.
Nonetheless while these political parties have been in the forefront to push conspiracy theories around EVMs, most of them except two, were absent at Election Commission’s EVM challenge last year which was open to 7 national parties and 49 state parties to challenge and attempt to hack into EVM’s. Only parties present at the event were NCP and CPI(M) who also refused to take part in the challenge However were given a detailed demonstration of the EVMs.
“CPM said that they do not want to participate in the challenge and only want to understand and see the whole EVM process. A detailed demonstration was given to them and their technical doubts were cleared in depth,” then chief election commissioner Nasim Zaidi had told reporters told reporters. “NCP representatives too said that they do not want to take participate in any challenge and only want to be a part of an academic exercise” Mr. Nasim Zaidi had added while speaking of EVMs.
The Election Commission had also introduced VVPATs earlier which had further solidified the security and integrity of the technologically progressive voting method. The effectiveness of VVPATs and EVMs was reiterated in the 2019 general elections when not a single mismatch was reported anywhere out of the 20,625 VVPATs that were tallied, another 100% record that has been maintained since VVPATs were first brought in from 2013-14.
While parties like NCP , AAP, BSP, Congress, TMC, TDP and others keep misleading the electorate through these theories, so much so that AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj even went ahead and conducted a ‘show and tell’ in the Delhi assembly to demonstrate tampering and Congress leader Kapil Sibal was seen in London with a self proclaimed hacking expert making frivolous claims on India’s electoral processes, go underground when they are asked for objective evidence of their claims. These comments by CEC are sure to be welcomed by the electorate which has been continually insulted by these opposition parties.