AAP flip-flops again,will not go for EC's EVM hackathon

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) took a U-turn on the electronic voting machine (EVM) issue on Friday and decided not to take part in the Election Commission's (EC) tampering challenge.

Last Saturday, the commission had announced that the challenge to hack and tamper with EVMs will take place on June 3, and seven national and 49 regional parties can apply for participation till 5 pm on May 26. The commission took the decision after the AAP and the BSP attacked the poll body, stating that the EVMs were faulty.

The AAP decided to keep away from the challenge a day after the poll panel rejected its demand to allow it to change the motherboard of these machines.

Instead, the party accused the commission of running away from an 'open' EVM hackathon. "Why is the EC running away from organising a no-holds-barred hackathon?" AAP asked in its letter.

It added that if the EC was so confident that EVMs are tamper-proof, it should allow the machines to be hacked without imposing any rules. "You have said that replacing the motherboard of an EVM would mean that it is no longer the same device. (But) how would you know that the motherboards of the existing EC machines have not been replaced or tampered with?" the letter, written by Pankaj Gupta, AAP National Secretary, read.