Election Commission rejects Congress plea for meeting, says it has full faith in EVMs

The Election Commission on Friday dismissed Congress leader Jairam Ramesh's concerns over paper slips generated during polling and said it has full faith in the electronic voting machines (EVMs).

An Election Commission communication said Ramesh’s letter to it had raised "no new assertions or reasonable and legitimate doubts which require further clarifications".

"Based on the outcomes of the elections conducted using EVMs, legal framework, established jurisprudence, technical security and administrative safeguards, the Commission has full faith in the use of the EVMs in the elections," Pramod Kumar Sharma, Principal Secretary in the poll panel, said.

Sharma added that the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips were introduced by the Congress-led UPA government in 2013.

INDIA request

Ramesh had written to the Election Commission on December 30 requesting that a delegation of the Opposition INDIA bloc be given an appointment to convey their views on (VVPAT slips.

The alliance had voiced doubts about the integrity of functioning of the EVMs and wanted the VVPAT slips to be handed over to the voters, who could drop it in a separate box.

The Opposition alliance had also demanded 100 per cent matching of the slips and the EVMs.

Meeting rejected

"The letter dated December 30 does not raise any unresponded issue on EVM/VVPAT," Sharma said. It "has no new assertions or reasonable and legitimate doubts which requires further clarifications", he added.

The Commission also dubbed as "out of context" the references made to other countries and their constitutional courts about the use of the EVMs in the elections.

Known procedures

The poll body pointed out that political parties and candidates are associated at every stage of handling of the EVMs starting from storage, movement, training, randomisation, commissioning, mock polls, start of poll, close of poll and counting.

The commission said issues covering aspects of EVMs like non-tampering, non-hacking, micro controllers, end-to-end verifiability, legal provisions, counting, technical competency, manufacturing and source code have already been addressed by it.

"It is stated that current EVMs in use in the Indian elections are compliant to the extant legal framework created and strengthened by successive Union governments and jurisprudence evolved over 40 years by the constitutional courts of India," the Commission said.

(With agency inputs)