Rift in Congress over EVM tampering issue: Amarinder Singh supports machine, Manish Tewari questions Punjab CM

Congress leader Manish Tewari on Thursday said Singh had himself demonstrated as to how the EVMs could be manipulated, when he was the Punjab Congress Committee (PCC) president in 2001. (Image: ANI)

New Delhi: Even as the Opposition has presented a united front over the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) tampering issue in the past few days, there seems to be infighting and disunity amongst the Congress party members with some being against their use, while others apparently not. A day after Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh came out in defence of the EVMs, citing had there been any possibility of tampering with the EVMs, he would have not won the Punjab Assembly elections, Congress leader Manish Tewari on Thursday said Singh had himself demonstrated as to how the EVMs could be manipulated, when he was the Punjab Congress Committee (PCC) president in 2001. The Chief Minister of Punjab is a respected leader, but few years back in 2010 and even in 2001, when he was the PCC president, he had himself demonstrated as to how the EVMs can be gerrymandered,? Tewari told ANI. Capt. Amarinder Singh?s reaction came following his landslide victory in the Punjab Assembly elections, in which the Congress secured 77 out of 117 seats making a strong comeback after a decade. While reacting on the open challenge thrown by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to the opposition to hack the EVMs, Tewari said the poll-watchdog should not act as an advocate for the voting machines. It?s extremely unfortunate that the Election Commission has taken upon itself the role of being the lawyer for the EVMs. Democracy is based upon public trust. It is based upon confidence which elected representatives have in the process. So, therefore, if there is a lack of confidence in the EVMs, why is the Election Commission holding itself as the advocate of the EVMs? What is the difficulty if the ECI agrees to hold elections by paper ballot?? said Tewari. The Congress leader further said that if the stakeholders were unhappy with a particular process, then a revised decision was needed. Democracy is a process which is an in interplay between various stakeholders and if, therefore, the stakeholders are unhappy with a particular process, then I am afraid the EC needs to reconsider its stand,? he said. A Congress-led delegation led by party president Sonia Gandhi had submitted a memorandum on the alleged irregularities in EVMs to President Pranab Mukherjee earlier on Wednesday. The delegation included several popular Congress leaders including party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, and Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad among others. Post meeting with President Mukherjee, Azad said that the alleged tampering of EVMs and the backdoor entry by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form the governments in Goa and Manipur, have raised questions on the electoral process in the country. Azad said that the united Opposition sought the President's intervention to maintain the constitutional safeguards in India. Meanwhile, the Election Commission on Wednesday threw an "open challenge" to people to hack its EVMs, a move which comes after opposition parties urged it to revert to the paper ballot system raising doubts over infallibility of the machines. "From first week of May, experts, scientists, technocrats can come for a week or 10 days and try to hack the machines," an official source said. They said the challenge will be open for a week or 10 days and will have various levels. The Commission had announced a similar challenge in 2009 and it claimed no one could hack its electronic voting machines (EVMs). Arvind Kejriwal alleged EC is helping BJP win elections Launching an attack on the EC over alleged EVM manipulation, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had claimed that the poll body was acting like "Dhritarashtra" to help son "Duryodhana" (BJP) win the polls. He alleged that the Commission's only intention was to bring the BJP to power in poll-bound states and that is why it was not paying heed to his request to investigate defective EVMs. Kejriwal's accusation comes a day after media reports stated that a few machines, used during the bypoll in Rajasthan's Dholpur, may have been "tampered with". Accusing the Election Commission of "overlooking" complaints of alleged EVM manipulation, Kejriwal linked the Commission to Mahabharata's character Dhritarashtra. Opposition parties urged EC to revert to paper ballots Sixteen opposition parties on Monday urged the Election Commission to revert to the paper ballot system in future elections saying tampering allegations have created "trust deficit" on the reliability of the voting machines. The parties had slammed the Centre for failing to provide funds to the Commission to put in place sufficient number of voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. "We are not blaming the EC. EC feels EVMs are tamper-proof. Even Pentagon is not fool-proof. We have urged the Commission to revert to paper ballot system till the reliability of EVMs is proven beyond doubt by all stakeholders," senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal had said. The parties said that there is a consensus among the political parties on the mode of conduct of elections, "which for the present, is against the EVMs and in favour of reverting to the original practice of voting by paper ballot". They reminded the Commission that the issue of "widespread allegations" about the tampering of EVM machines in the recently-held assembly elections have been raised by almost all opposition parties in Parliament. The delegation told the three Commissioners that the recent allegations of tampering of EVMs in Ater of Bhind district in Madhya Pradesh "to suit BJP further lend credence to this apprehension of the opposition parties". They said similar allegations of EVM tampering have been reported in the Maharashtra local body elections -- BMC elections (Mumbai), Municipal Corporations of Pune, Nashik and Amravati. (With inputs from a agencies)