Only NCP signs up for EVM challenge

Only one political party—the NCP— signed up by the end of the day on Friday for the election commission’s open challenge to prove that electronic voting machines (EVMs) can be tampered with.

The challenge, which will begin on June 3, will have to run without the participation of parties such as the Aam Aadmi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Trinamool Congress, which have been alleging that the EVMs used in the five-state assembly polls earlier this year had been manipulated in favour of the ruling BJP.

According to EC officials, only eight parties responded; while NCP has agreed to participate in the challenge, BJP, RLD, CPI and CPM have “expressed their intent to observe”.

After it failed to convince the parties that the EVM safeguards were fool-proof, the EC had scheduled the open challenge from June 3, for recognised national and regional political parties.

It had asked these parties to nominate up to three representatives to take part in the challenge, provided they are all of Indian nationality, and prove their allegations.

Several parties said they decided not to join the challenge. AAP, however, said it could not agree to the conditions laid down by the poll panel.

The Party had sought permission to change the internal circuitry of the machines, which was turned down by the panel on the grounds that it was “irrational and implausible”.

The AAP accused the EC of “running away from a no-holds barred hackathon”.