14 EVMs and 2 parties: EC gears up for ‘hackathon’
and making electoral gains in Goa. A series of crises, including infighting in the Delhi and Punjab units, have hit the party since. The last meeting of the NE was held in April 2016.
“A final decision on Gujarat will be taken in a meeting of those involved with the party’s expansion in the state. It is now a question of how many seats to fight in the assembly elections there,” a party leader privy to the deliberations so far said.
Kejriwal, the party’s national convenor, has called the meeting on June 6.
A senior leader said that the consensus within the party brass is to go slow on Gujarat, and therefore the national expansion plan, and look at “consolidating our position in Delhi and Punjab.”
“Gujarat is no longer our priority. Regaining lost ground in Delhi is of utmost importance. Punjab has given us a good opportunity by making us the principal opposition party,” he added.
The Election Commission will use as many as 14 randomly selected electronic voting machines (EVMs) deployed during elections in Punjab, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh during the hacking challenge it is holding on Saturday.
The challenge is being held to counter allegations by various opposition parties that the devices can be tampered with.
Of the seven national and 65 recognised regional parties, only two have chosen to participate in the “hackathon” that will be held at the EC headquarters in the Capital. The EVMs will be open for scrutiny by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) that accepted the challenge.
After the BJP’s landslide victory in the UP assembly polls, such as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Trinamool Congress and the Congress had alleged that the EVMs were tampered.