Urging people to vote in large numbers, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said he was afraid that there would be 5%-10% EVM tampering in MCD polls. "One, pre-2006 EVMs without security features are being used in Delhi; two, these EVMs have no VVPATs; three, the EVMs are coming from Rajasthan (where he said EVMs were tampered with).... The only way to fail EVM tampering is to vote for the AAP tomorrow in huge numbers... People must defeat the EVM tampering," he said
He also squarely blamed AAP's loss in Punjab polls on EVM tampering and said he was '100% sure 'that was the reason which prevented his party from winning polls. "We did not make these allegations earlier when BJP won in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. In the last four months, evidence is emerging of tampering... from Pune, Bhind, Dholpur, Punjab, UP," he added.
In an interview to IANS, Kejriwal said that the fact that the Election Commission refused an independent probe raised suspicion about the issue. "They have not invited anyone... Only stories are planted in the media. They first agreed to let us check the EVMs before the Delhi polls. Then they said they could be checked after the polls. Why not earlier?"
Just a couple of days before the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) suffered a blow as the Delhi High Court on Friday rejected their plea for the use of the Electronic Voting Machines with Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT ) for the upcoming civic polls.
Justice AK Pathak dismissed the plea which was jointly filed by AAP and one Tahir Hussain demanding that Generation-2 of EVMs with VVPAT should be used for the MCD elections to remove the chances of tampering.
The court observed that it was difficult to replace 13,000 EVMs at the eleventh hour.
Earlier, appearing for the State Election Commission (SEC), its counsel Sumeet Pushkarna had stated that the voting machines are completely safe and cannot be hacked. Also the cost of replacing the machines would be huge.
The court, however, did not say anything about the performance of the machines. VVPAT is a machine attached to Generation 2 or 3 of EVMs which gives a slip mentioning the name and symbol of the candidate for whom the vote has been cast.
