EVMs being manipulated, says Congress' Sanjay Nirupam

Weeks ahead of Maharashtra and Haryana assembly polls, Congress has sought to raise serious doubts about the Lok Sabha elections results, which the BJP front won with thumping margins. The party is now blaming a

Gujarat-based firm reportedly owned by Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan's son, of having tampered with the electronic voting machines (EVMs) and reaped the results favouring BJP.

Launching a scathing attack on the firm to which EC had reportedly outsourced the job of servicing and repairing EVMs, Congress secretary and a former MP Sanjay Nirupam said: "Most of the EVMs used in Lok Sabha elections were serviced at a Gujarat-based company owned by Sumitra Mahajan's son. I have information that the Japan-made chips in the EVMs were tampered with to manipulate the results. Otherwise, how can a party win so many seats with such huge margins?"

He however didn't furnish any document to prove his claims. He even refused to name the firm saying, it's an "open secret". He also claimed assembly results of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan had been manipulated in similar manner, giving BJP an "unprecedented majority."

When asked if Congress had also bagged power using similar tactics, Nirupam said, "We never won with such margins."

Allegations of EVMs being manipulated are not new. However, this is probably the first time that Congress has questioned its authenticity. EC has rejected such claims made before. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had filed a PIL in Supreme Court, which had led the apex court to direct EC to introduce VVPAT in all EVMs in a phased manner.

SC had also asked EC to get all 90,000 EVMs to be used in Oct 15 state polls serviced and VVPAT introduced in all machines before the names of candidates were finalised.

Nirupam who lost his Mumbai North parliamentary seat four months ago, claimed that though state-owned companies manufactured EVMs, EC had outsourced repairing work to private agencies zone-wise, giving scope for manipulation.

"The machine can be manipulated at three stages: in the chip during servicing/repairing; in the display by seeing that buttons and candidates don't match, and rigging the results directly by satellite," Nirupam said.