As opposition parties once again raised the bogey of EVM manipulation ahaed of the Election Commission announcement on poll dates for Maharashtra and Jharkhand, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Tuesday said that the public has answered the questions by participating in voting.
Speaking to ANI, Kumar said “The public answers questions by participating in the voting. As far as the EVMs are concerned, they are 100 per cent foolproof. If they raise questions today again, we will tell them again.”
Earlier, Congress leader Rashid Alvi claimed that EVM’s could be manipulated citing the example of Israel hacking pagers of militant outfit Hezbollah.
“In Maharashtra, the opposition should put pressure to insist on voting by paper ballot and not EVMs. Otherwise, in Maharashtra, BJP govt and EC can do anything. If Israel can kill people by use of pagers and walkie-talkies, then where does EVM stand? The PM has very good relations with Israel. Israel is an expert in such things. EVM ka bada khel kahin bhi ho sakta hai aur uske liye BJP chunav se pehle yeh sab khel kar leti hai,” Rashid Alvi said.
Last week, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh submitted a memorandum to ECI, and said he hopes that the body takes cognizance of the issue and give appropriate instructions.
Taking to social media platform X, the party General Secretary in charge of communication, wrote, “On October 9, senior Congress party leaders submitted a memorandum full of complaints to the Election Commission. Taking it forward today, we have given an updated memorandum, highlighting serious and clear irregularities in the election process in 20 assembly constituencies of Haryana. We hope that the Election Commission will take cognizance of this and issue appropriate instructions.”
Congress leader Pawan Khera said that the party had sent a list of 20 seats in which the candidates had submitted their written and verbal complaints over the EVM counting votes in the Haryana Assembly elections.
Speaking to ANI, Khera said “We have sent a list of 20 seats to the Election Commission regarding which our candidates have submitted written and verbal complaints of 99 per cent battery charge. This issue was raised on the day of counting…This is a strange coincidence that the machines which displayed 99 per cent battery charge were the ones on which Congress was mostly made to lose. The machines with 60-70 per cent battery charge are the ones on which Congress won. Why did this happen?”
The Election Commission will announce the poll dates for Maharashtra and Jharkhand on Tuesday.