New Delhi: The Election Commission will hold the much-anticipated hackathon from June 3, giving a chance to technocrats and political parties to try and prove that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) can be tampered with.
Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi on Saturday said that political parties willing to participate in the EVM challenge must mandatorily confirm their interest to ECI by 5 pm, on May 26. However, the Commissioner also simultaneously warned the parties of not making it an issue of prestige.
He said people who had questioned the reliability of EVMs have not yet submitted any proof or credible material to support their claim. To which Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal responded on Twitter saying, "Sir, u never provided the machines pl."
This open challenge comes at a time when opposition parties, particularly the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), have questioned the reliability of these machines. AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj had on May 9, 2017, claimed to have hacked into a machine in the Delhi Assembly.
Rubbishing Kejriwal's allegations Zaidi said, "Our EVMs have strong technological features and are tamper-proof," he said, "no manipulation of the machines was possible."
He also said that improving the election process is a responsibility of all stakeholders and the EC is taking all necessary steps in this regard.
The Commissioner also stressed the need for the improvement of the electoral process saying, it was the "responsibility of all the stakeholders".
Appreciating the technology used in voting machines in India, Zaidi said that ECI machines were "far more superior" than machines used by the rest of the world.
The BSP and the AAP had alleged that the machines used in the recent assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab were tampered with and favoured the BJP. Later, several other parties had joined the chorus and waned the EC to revert to paper ballots.
The EC has already announced that it will ensure paper trail of voting in all future elections to the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies.
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