'EVM hackathon more of an exercise than a challenge'

As the EVM hacking challenge to be held by the Election Commission (EC) approaches, Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has said that its participation on June 3 will purely be from an academic point of view. NCP has stated that there are no intentions to oppose the EC's claims, take credit or gain brownie points. The party also does not plan to go the AAP way of public demonstration to drive home its point, but keep it a low-key affair.

NCP has roped in two IT and cyber law experts who will be accompanied by the party MP Vandana Chavan on June 3 before the poll panel. NCP's move is crucial, especially, since the party was not keen to blame the EVMs for poll debacle but rather to be acquainted with the functioning of EVMs.

NCP is currently a part of UDF government in Kerala while the party is in opposition in Maharashtra with its presence in few other states.

Chavan told DNA, "The party does not treat it as a challenge but sees it as an academic exercise to know about EVMs better. This is a golden opportunity to closely watch how EVMs function and examine the possibility of tampering and malfunctioning. Besides, we will be able to discuss vulnerable points and personally find out whether EVMs can be tampered with.''

Initially, NCP was the only party to take part in the hacking challenge. Now, the CPM too plans to join the bandwagon. "NCP's presence in the elections held to five state assemblies was negligible. The party was stunned to know the mismatch between the total number of votes polled and the votes counted for the Pune Municipal Corporation elections. We brought this to the EC's notice but the latter said it was the jurisdiction of state poll panel,''she said.

However, Chavan said the party was quite happy that the voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or verifiable paper record (VPR) will be made applicable in the 2019 elections across India. VVPAT is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballot-less voting system.

''During the meeting on June 3, NCP plans to suggest ways on how to make VVPAT more voter-friendly and also that voters need to be given more time while casting their votes," Chavan added.

PARTY’S STANCE

• NCP has roped in two IT and cyber law experts who will be accompanied by the party MP Vandana Chavan on June 3 before the poll panel
   
• The party has stated that there are no intentions to oppose the Election Comminssion’s claims
   
• Following suit, the CPM too has planned to join the EVM challenge NCP has roped in two IT and cyber law experts who will be accompanied by the party MP Vandana Chavan on June 3 before the poll panel
   
• The party has stated that there are no intentions to oppose the Election Comminssion’s claims
   
• Following suit, the CPM too has planned to join the EVM challenge