CPM and NCP see no need to challenge EC’s EVMs

new delhi — The CPM and NCP, the only two parties that agreed to accept the Election Commission’s EVM challenge, on Saturday did not take part in the test to prove the reliability of electronic voting machines (EVMs).

While the CPM expressed “satisfaction” after a demonstration, the NCP said they did not want to participate in an EVM challenge, but were only interested in it as an academic exercise.

The EC said the NCP could come back later to access the “memory and battery numbers” by opening the machines themselves, as they had demanded.

Briefing reporters after the EVM challenge at the Nirvachan Sadan, chief election commissioner Nasim Zaidi said the issue of “tamperability of machines” should be closed with the end of the challenge.

“The machines are not tamperable. The issue tamperability of machines should be closed with this and with VVPAT (Voter verified paper audit trail),” Zaidi said. He said the challenge should not be seen in terms of victory or defeat. “It was a mutually learning exercise,” he said.

Zaidi said the CPM conveyed they did not wish to participate in the challenge but only wanted to understand the EVM process. He said the CPM members were given a detailed demonstration about EVMs by their technical team, and they were “satisfied”.

“A detailed demonstration was given to them. Technical doubts were clarified,” he said.

Zaidi said CPM members expressed “complete satisfaction” and suggested that the poll panel should hold such demonstrations and awareness sessions pro-actively. —