Express News Service
NEW DELHI: With the general election only 14 months away, several Opposition leaders came together on Thursday to flag their concerns about electronic voting machines (EVM) and urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to address their doubts over EVMs.
The meeting called by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar was attended by leaders of various political parties, including Congress MP Digvijaya Singh, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal, Samajwadi Party MP Ram Gopal Yadav, SP leader Praful Patel, CPI leader D Raja, BRS leader Keshava Rao, CPI (M) leader Elamaram Kareem. TMC, however, did not attend the meeting.
Speaking to this newspaper, CPI general secretary D Raja said, “There are many questions concerning the use of EVMs. It is not only political parties, questions have been raised by civil society organisations, the public, and experts on the credibility of EVMs. In such a situation, we felt that political parties must raise the questions before the EC. Though we have raised a clutch of issues before, the EC hasn’t given proper answers. We have to think about future actions and collectively take some steps so that democracy will be saved.” In May 2022, the civil society had submitted a letter to the ECI raising doubts regarding the manipulation of EVMs.
In January this year, the ECI’s new proposal of Remote Voting Machines (RVM) to allow domestic migrant workers to cast their vote kicked up a debate. Several Opposition parties were up in arms against the proposal, but the poll body maintained that it’s a ‘work in progress’. With the Opposition parties flagging several concerns regarding the new proposal, the ECI even had to put off the demonstration of the prototype of the machine in an all-party meeting, which was attended by representatives of at least 70 political parties Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said that there are apprehensions in the country over the Remote EVM.
“EC had called an all-party meeting over Remote EVM. Almost unanimously, holding elections through Remote EVM was disagreed by parties. They wanted to give a demonstration, but that too was turned down. There is suspicion in the country over this,” Singh said.
The meeting was held after Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that he will respond to doubts raised by political parties and civil society activists over EVM. Singh said though ECI earlier had said that EVM is a standalone machine, later accepted otherwise as the names of candidates and symbols of respective political parties are embedded in it online. “They used to say that it has a one-time programmable chip. But now they accept it has multiple programmable chips,” he added.
Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal said that the concerns about the electoral process through EVMs were being raised several times. He pointed out that whenever the machines were found faulty, ‘the vote always goes to the BJP’. “It is a fact that no other country in the world uses EVMs for voting. Then why are these machines being used in our country? The foundation of democracy is at stake if the ‘one man, one vote’ can be manipulated,” he said.
NEW DELHI: With the general election only 14 months away, several Opposition leaders came together on Thursday to flag their concerns about electronic voting machines (EVM) and urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to address their doubts over EVMs.
The meeting called by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar was attended by leaders of various political parties, including Congress MP Digvijaya Singh, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal, Samajwadi Party MP Ram Gopal Yadav, SP leader Praful Patel, CPI leader D Raja, BRS leader Keshava Rao, CPI (M) leader Elamaram Kareem. TMC, however, did not attend the meeting.
Speaking to this newspaper, CPI general secretary D Raja said, “There are many questions concerning the use of EVMs. It is not only political parties, questions have been raised by civil society organisations, the public, and experts on the credibility of EVMs. In such a situation, we felt that political parties must raise the questions before the EC. Though we have raised a clutch of issues before, the EC hasn’t given proper answers. We have to think about future actions and collectively take some steps so that democracy will be saved.” In May 2022, the civil society had submitted a letter to the ECI raising doubts regarding the manipulation of EVMs. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });
In January this year, the ECI’s new proposal of Remote Voting Machines (RVM) to allow domestic migrant workers to cast their vote kicked up a debate. Several Opposition parties were up in arms against the proposal, but the poll body maintained that it’s a ‘work in progress’. With the Opposition parties flagging several concerns regarding the new proposal, the ECI even had to put off the demonstration of the prototype of the machine in an all-party meeting, which was attended by representatives of at least 70 political parties Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said that there are apprehensions in the country over the Remote EVM.
“EC had called an all-party meeting over Remote EVM. Almost unanimously, holding elections through Remote EVM was disagreed by parties. They wanted to give a demonstration, but that too was turned down. There is suspicion in the country over this,” Singh said.
The meeting was held after Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that he will respond to doubts raised by political parties and civil society activists over EVM. Singh said though ECI earlier had said that EVM is a standalone machine, later accepted otherwise as the names of candidates and symbols of respective political parties are embedded in it online. “They used to say that it has a one-time programmable chip. But now they accept it has multiple programmable chips,” he added.
Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal said that the concerns about the electoral process through EVMs were being raised several times. He pointed out that whenever the machines were found faulty, ‘the vote always goes to the BJP’. “It is a fact that no other country in the world uses EVMs for voting. Then why are these machines being used in our country? The foundation of democracy is at stake if the ‘one man, one vote’ can be manipulated,” he said.
