A day ahead of the all-party meeting called by the Election Commission on the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) issue, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) seemed to be the lone political force pushing for the use of Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT)-equipped machines in future elections.

Besides the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)’s Lalu Prasad Yadav who extended support to AAP’s objections to EVMs, other parties, including the Congress, maintained a studied silence over the issue before the Election Commission meeting.

Apart from demanding that paper trail EVMs be used, AAP plans to approach the Election Commission with the request that votes registered in EVMs and paper trails of 25 per cent randomly chosen booths be tallied.

VVPAT-equipped EVMs dispense paper slips which help voters confirm that their vote has indeed gone to the candidate of their choice. Hundreds of AAP workers gathered before the EC headquarters on Thursday morning, demanding the use of VVPAT machines and setting up of an all-party committee under the Commission to look into allegations of EVM manipulation. The protesters, including AAP MLAs and newly appointed Delhi convener Gopal Rai, alleged that the manipulation of electronic voting machines was killing democracy.

“EVM manipulation is a real possibility and should be looked into immediately,” said RK Gupta, an AAP worker who had come from Dwarka in south-west Delhi to the poll panel’s central Delhi headquarters.

“This is how BJP won polls in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Even the division along caste lines could not have helped them with such a huge victory,” added Pragati, another worker, who had come from Mundka near the city’s western border.

Seek access to EVMs

The party will approach the Commission tomorrow seeking access to electronic voting machines (EVMs) that were used in the recently held Assembly polls.

AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj, who had showed a live demonstration of how an EVM look-alike could be tampered with in the Delhi Assembly on May 9, later told a press conference that the committee must have representatives of all the political parties.

“Why is it that all the technical defects in EVMs that have come to light recently, say in Bhind or Dholpur, favoured only the BJP?” Bhardwaj asked. The AAP has deputed Bhardwaj, along with two technical experts, at the all-party meeting on Friday.

When asked to elaborate, most protesters cited Saurabh Bhardwaj’s live demo on EVM manipulation in the Delhi Assembly.

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