New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday took the battle over Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to the Election Commission doorstep, demanding that voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT)-equipped machines be used in future elections.
The protesters, including AAP MLAs and newly appointed Delhi convener Gopal Rai, alleged that the manipulation of electronic voting machines was killing democracy. "EVM manipulation is a real possibility and should be looked into immediately," said RK Gupta, an AAP worker who had come from Dwarka in southwest Delhi to the poll panel's central Delhi headquarters.
"This is how the BJP won polls in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Even the division along caste lines could not have helped them with such a huge victory," added Pragati, another worker, who had come from Mundka near the city's western border.
Asked to elaborate, most protesters cited AAP legislator Saurabh Bhardwaj's live demo on EVM manipulation in the Delhi Assembly, PTI reported.
VVPAT-equipped EVMs dispense paper slips which help voters confirm that their vote has indeed gone to the candidate of their choice.
Participating in a discussion on the issue during a day-long special session of the Delhi Assembly earlier this week, Bhardwaj claimed that a voting machine could be manipulated by simply feeding it with a "secret code".
Using what his party claimed was a prototype EVM developed by a group of IITians, Bhardwaj, himself an engineer, showed how it could be tampered with to favour a particular candidate.
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