EVM Challenge : NCP, CPI(M) opts out : Election Commission

Electronic Voting Machine Challenge organised by Election Commission here only Saturday ended with the Chief Election Commissioner claiming that NCP and CPI(M) opted out saying they only want to understand EVM process. 

After the EVM challenge, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi told reporters that while CPM said they don’t want to participate in the challenge but wish to understand the EVM process, NCP team informed they too don’t want to participate in any challenge but were only interested to participate in an academic exercise. 

“CPM team expressed complete satisfaction and suggested that commission should hold such demonstration and awareness sessions proactively. NCP team informed they too don’t want to participate in any challenge but were only interested to participate in an academic exercise.”he said. 

On NCP’s allegation about faulty EVMs during Maharashtra civic polls, Zaidi said, the Commission clarified that EVMs used by Maharashtra state election commission for for urban local body elections were not belong to Election Commission.  

Zaidi said there will be no more challenge and if any parties have doubt they can approach the EC and get it clarified. If anybody made baseless allegation against the Commission questioning its integrity proper action will be taken as per the Uttarakhand High Court, which cautioned the political parties and public about harming the reputation of the Constitutional body, he said.  

The EVM challenge started Saturday morning with a detailed demonstration of the security features of the voting machines. 

Only NCP and CPI (M) agreed to participate in the challenge out of the seven national parties and 49 state parties invited initially. Representatives from both parties were given four machines and four hours to hack into it. The machines were brought from Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh where recent Assembly elections were held.

Though CPI wanted to observe the challenge, Zaidi said we have told the parties that they can only participate in tampering challenge and not as observer. 

The challenge was organised after several major opposition parties had claimed that the faith of people in the machines has eroded due to allegations of tampering in the recent election. The EC has maintained that EVMs are tamper-proof.