Besides political parties, Election Commission slams AAP by stating that the machine hacked was only a look-alike gadget
Ducking questions about allegations of accepting bribe, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday managed to bring his favourite subject — Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) tampering — to the day-long special session of Delhi Assembly.
During the Assembly session, Kejriwal did not speak in the House but later told the media outside that EVMs could be tampered with in 90 seconds by changing the motherboard. The House then passed a resolution and requested President Pranab Mukherjee and the EC to ensure that all elections were held using EVMs with Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines. The resolution also called for tallying of votes in 25 per cent randomly-selected booths with the paper trail generated by VVPAT machines. During the session, AAP legislator Saurabh Bharadwaj demonstrated how an EVM could be tampered with to rig poll results. He brought an EVM prototype used by the EC and showed how codes embedded inside could be used to manipulate results. He did not name the BJP but provided enough hints to insinuate that it was the beneficiary.
"I will show you how the machines on which the faith of democracy rests can be tampered with. An ordinary engineer like me, with just 10-15 days of hard work, can tamper with them," he said. The Election Commission (EC)was quick to trash the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) demonstration of EVM tampering in the Assembly, saying that "the machine hacked in the Delhi Assembly was a look-alike gadget and not the actual equipment".
Even Congress and BJP mocked Kejriwal, saying he was an expert in diversionary tactics. Sources said the EVM issue was raised to stop splitting of AAP in two groups, as a large number of MLAs wanted Kejriwal to leave the posts of Convenor as well as Chief Minister.
In a statement, the poll panel said: "It is possible for anyone to make any electronic gadget that looks like ECI EVM and demonstrate magic or tampering. It is common sense that gadgets other than ECI-EVMs can be programmed to perform in a pre-determined way, but it simply cannot be implied that ECI-EVMs will behave in the same manner, because they are technically secured and function under an elaborate administrative and security protocol." The election body stated that the 'so-called' demonstration on extraneous and duplicate gadgets not owned by the Commission "cannot be exploited to influence our intelligent citizens and electorate to assail or vilify the EVMs used by the Commission in its electoral process".The BJP termed the EVM issue a farce, stating that Kejriwal was hiding himself behind his cronies as he has been exposed for taking a bribe of Rs 2 crore from his Cabinet minister.
The Congress, too, slammed Kejriwal saying the demonstration belittled and weakened the whole case. Congress Sandeep Dikshit said Kejriwal and his party believed him to be a demi-God but he was not even a decent honest human being.
"The machine that he has used is not the EVM that EC uses. The ones I have voted from have a different structure," Dikshit said.
Analysis
Amid allegations of corruption, CM Arvind Kejriwal takes up the EVM rigging issue to divert attention from the accusations.
Many MLAs want Arvind Kejriwal to be removed from the helm of party affairs. Suspended AAP member Kapil Mishra has alleged that Kejriwal has changed a lot after being CM
Congress to slammed the move saying the demonstration weakened the whole case
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