Hack EVM machines if you can: Election Commission dares political parties

Even as major Opposition parties met President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday and raised issues of alleged EVM tampering during their meeting, the Election Commission has come out with an 'open challenge' to hack the machines from the first week of May.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and senior party leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mallikarjun Kharge, and Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Sitaram Yechury were part of the delegation that submitted a memorandum to the President on alleged tampering with the Electronic Voting Machines during recent state polls.

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday slammed the ‘rejected and dejected’ opposition parties for raising the issue of tampered Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and said they are finding it difficult to comply with the electoral defeats in the recently concluded assembly elections.

‘The rejected and dejected Opposition, devoid of any issues, is trying to invent issues such as the EVMs and then are continuing with their disinformation campaign inside and outside the Parliament. The people have rejected them both in 2014 and now in the recent state assembly elections also,’ Naidu said hours after a 13-member delegation met President Pranab Mukherjee to apprise him of the issue.

The senior BJP leader said the Opposition parties are continuing with their disinformation campaign about the EVMs because they are unable to digest the growing popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

‘They are suffering from the problem of not being able to reconcile to the reality and secondly they are not able to digest the growing popularity of the Prime Minister and the government, that’s why they are continuing with the disinformation,’ he said.

‘EVMs were used earlier when they won. They had no problem till then and now that they have lost last elections, they are having problem,’ he added.

Applauding the BJP-led government for passing several historic legislations in the Parliament, Naidu said, ‘The image of the country in the international arena has gone up, foreign investments are coming, inflation is under control, prices are under control. The Central Government is focusing its attention on development and good governance.’

‘Historic initiatives are being taken up by the Prime Minister and the government. Pro-poor and pro-reform initiatives are bringing different sections close to the government and these parties are not able to understand the mandate of the people,’ he added.

The delegation of opposition parties including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, party vice-president Rahul Gandhi and senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad also gave a detailed memorandum to the President seeking his intervention.

The opposition alleged that the key bills are being disguised as money bill to bypass and undermine the constitutional position of the Rajya Sabha.

The delegation also raised question over the malfunctioning and alleged tampering of the EVM machines while stating that it has raised question on the electoral process.

"Non-BJP ruled states are being destabilised by misusing the powers of Governors... The recent example being Goa and Manipur," the opposition stated.

In the memorandum, they also apprised the President about the misuse of central agencies including the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax (IT) by the Centre to harass the opposition.