On Wednesday, a day before the counting of votes in Uttar Pradesh, SP claimed that the EVM were being tampered.
Samajwadi Party took to twitter and uploaded 45 seconds- long video clip in which an official can be seen admitting to the fact that proper protocols had not been followed during the transportation of the voting machine on Tuesday, thereby using the video to support their claim.
However, in the very same video, the official likewise precluded the chances of messing with the electronic voting machines.
The Electronic Voting Machines, commonly known as the electronic voting machines, are machines designed for conducting elections by facilitating quick and accurate vote count while maintaining the secrecy of the voting data and eliminating any chances of invalid vote.
Dismissing the charges leveled by the Samajwadi Party, on Thursday, CEC ruled out the allegations of electronic voting machines tampering; said ‘counting is a transparent process.
In an exclusive interview with ANI, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Sushil Chandra said
“There is no question of EVM tampering. EVM are continuously used since 2004, by 2019 we have started maintaining voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) at every polling booth. After looking at them, EVMs are sealed in the presence of agents of political parties and their signatures are taken. Dealer EVMs are kept in a strong room under three-tier security.”
Chandra further addressed the electronic voting machines in Varanasi and said that each EVM has its own number and purpose and the machine currently in question was meant from training purposes only and was not part of the actual voting.
He also stated that after the accusations by the political parties they were shown the electronic voting machines numbers of the ones meant for the poll which did not match the number of the machine in question.
“The mistake of the ADM was that he didn`t inform political parties about the movement of EVM for training purposes which was the standard operating procedure. Every EVM has some number. When people of a political party raised questions then we showed them the number of EVM, which was not matched with the EVM number meant for the poll. They found that the EVM number for the question that was raised did not match with the EVM numbers which were sealed and kept in the strong room for counting. After that they were satisfied.”
Following the incident, Nalini Kant Singh, Addition District Magistrate Varanasi (ADM) has been removed from her election duties on accounts of negligence of transportation.
Advocating the suspension, the CEC said
“There is a standard operating procedure of EVM movement once polling is done. The procedure is to inform political parties prior to the movement of EVM, which was not done by the ADM, which created a rumour, so we were bound to take action on suspension against the ADM.”
Chandra explained that the counting is always done in a transparent manner following a standard procedure. The individuals who are just the agents of the approved political parties are permitted to come inside the counting place.
After each round, the representatives of political parties are given a rundown of estimations concerning how much has been counted, the quantities of electronic voting machines that are carried for counting is coordinated with representatives of the parties, they additionally have signatures of the representatives and the solid room is under observation 24*7.
Published by – Kiruthiga K
Edited by – Khushi Thakur
