Just a few months back, after the election results of four states, many opposition parties alleged that the EVMs had been tampered with but the Election Commission of India was in no mood to agree with the allegations. In fact, it gave a chance to the opposition parties to prove their claim by organizing EVM Hackathon and to the surprise of many, the political parties which were shouting at the top of their voices against EVMs didn’t even turn up for the event.
But now a case of EVM malfunction has been reported in Maharashtra. The detail about the case was disclosed on Saturday in response to the questions asked in an RTI.
It has been reported that in the election of Buldhana Zila Parishad at the Sultanpur polling station, whenever a voter pressed the button for coconut symbol, the LED lamp of BJP started flashing. The coconut symbol was allotted to an independent candidate by the Election Commission.
The RTI was filed by activist Anil Galgali and the information also said that the Returning Officer (RO) wrote about the erroneous machine in his report and District Collector was informed about it too. Anil filed this RTI in Buldhana Collector’s Office demanding information in relation to the complaint filed by independent candidate Smt Ashatai Arun Zore.
Anil Galgali told,
“The Buldhana collectorate’s election department replied that at polling station No. 56 in Sultanpur of Lonar town, when the voter pressed the Independent candidate No. 1’s coconut symbol, the LED lamp flashed against the BJP candidate No. 4’s lotus symbol, signifying that the vote had gone to the latter.”
It was 10 am when the first complaint was made in this regard but the Election Officer chose to ignore it. It was around 1:30 pm that the frequency of complaints increased significantly and the Election Officer then discussed the matter with the polling agents of the parties. After the polling agents gave their confirmation, the Election Officer Manikrao Baazad checked the machines and found that the complaints were correct.
After that, Ramnarayan Sawant, the booth in-charge, also investigated the matter and informed about it to the Election Returning Officer, Lonar. Lonar’s Assistant Returning Officer also visited the polling station and verified the error.
The decision to cancel the election in that booth was taken and reports given by various election officers were sent to the collector. The erroneous machine was sealed and polling booth was closed and a repoll took place after 5 days, i.e., on February 21, as many political parties demanded it.
Anil Galgali said,
“This case conclusively proves an ‘EVM fraud’. It was brought to notice by a voter, confirmed by many other voters, the RO and other officials also reconfirmed it and sent a report to the Collector. In order to avoid such repetition in future, the EC must consider alternatives to the EVMs which can be tampered with.”
This is definitely a serious concern and the Election Commission needs to take some serious action in this regard.