Hundreds of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) workers held a protest demonstration outside the office of the Election Commission of India (ECI), over the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) row, on Thursday. Delhi Labour Minister Gopal Rai joined the protest and put forth their demands in front of the EC.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

"If the EC claims that its machines cannot be tampered with, then, we demand them to give us their machines. We will show them by hacking them," Rai said. The protesters raised slogans, including 'EVM mein gadbadi karke vote chori band karo, EVM mein gadbad karke loktantra ki hatya band karo.'

"Questions were raised in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, etc. So, we want to appeal to the ECI that they give us their machine and we will show how to hack it. Secondly, we want that the Supreme Court's 2013 order of conducting elections by VVPAT should be implemented, and third, voting machines and slips should be tallied," Rai added.

Coming down heavily on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the issue, the AAP on Tuesday had staged a "live demonstration of EVM tampering" in the Delhi Assembly. During the special day-long Assembly session, AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj gave the demo using a machine similar to the EVMs.

According to Bhardwaj, a secret code, once entered into the machine, transfers all votes to one party. He undertook a small voting procedure by giving two votes each to AAP, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), BJP, Indian National Congress (INC), and the Samajwadi Party (SP). He then pressed the secret code and all eight votes went to AAP.

Bhardwaj further said the secret code was easy to enter as the ballot unit was covered with a cardboard box. Therefore, only the voter could see inside it. He also condemned EC's inquiry report, claiming it had no basis.