AAP stages protest outside EC, demands VVPAT equipped EVMS for future polls

The Aam Aadmi Party leaders and workers on Thursday staged protest outside Election Commission over issue of alleged manipulation of EVMs. The protesters were demanding that voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT)- equipped EVMs be used in future elections.

Senior party leader Gopal Rai led the protest with hundreds of supporters amid heavy deployment of police personnel in the vicinity of the Election Commission.

The protesters alleged that the manipulation of electronic voting machines was killing democracy.

“EVM manipulation is a real possibility and should be looked into immediately,” said R K Gupta, an AAP worker who had come from Dwarka in southwest Delhi to the poll panel’s central Delhi headquarters.

“This is how 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.

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Asked to elaborate, most protesters cited AAP legislator Saurabh Bhardwaj’s live demo on EVM manipulation in the Delhi Assembly.

Apart from demanding that VVPAT-equipped EVMs be used, the party plans to approach the Election Commission with the request that votes registered in EVMs and paper trails of 25 per cent randomly chosen booths be tallied.

VVPAT-equipped EVMs dispense paper slips which help voters confirm that their vote has indeed gone to the candidate of their choice.

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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”. (With PTI Inputs)