New Delhi : Even as 13 political parties had approached the Election Commission and raised their doubts about the Electronic Voting Machines' (EVMs) reliability in conducting fair elections, none of them could take up the challenge thrown up today by the poll panel to prove that the machines could be tampered with. Only two parties — CPM and NCP — which had accepted the challenge, appeared for the event today, but backed out at the last minute.
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On the conclusion of the event, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi, while briefing media reiterated that the EC's EVMs cannot be tampered with and once 100 per cent use of paper trail machines in all future elections starts with 2019 General Elections, the issue now "stands closed".
With these remarks, Zaidi made it clear that there would be no such challenge in future to test the reliability of EVMs used by the poll panel. The CPM said it would not like to participate in the challenge, while the NCP too decided to opt out after raising some questions regarding EC's "failure" to provide it with some details it had sought.
The NCP, however, has been extended another chance to return at a later date to hack the machines as an "academic exercise", the CEC added. "A detailed demonstration of the entire process was given to them by our technical team...The CPM team expressed complete satisfaction and suggested that to allay any such doubts the Commission should hold such demonstrations and awareness sessions with technical community proactively” Zaidi said reading out a statement. The BSP and the AAP had alleged that the machines used in the recent assembly elections were tampered with and favoured the BJP.