NEW DELHI: Election Commission of India on Tuesday addressed concerns regarding wrongful additions and deletions of voters in the electoral roll and said that the allegations regarding the rigging Electronic Voting Machines were “baseless.”
Setting a poetic tone, the chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar began with a shayari: “Sab sawaal ahamiyat rakhte hai, jawaab toh banta hai…”
“I am coming to some serious issues… In 2024, some apprehensions and doubts were raised. It was said that there were wrongful additions and deletions in electoral rolls… this started recently after general elections is currently going on in Delhi. It was also said that certain groups are targeted and names of voters are removed… I will explain whether all this is possible or not,” he said.
He added that political parties were involved at each and every stage of voter list preparation with full disclosure and opportunity to object.
CEC added that it was not possible to change the voter turnout and said that it was “misleading to compare final VTR with 5pm data.”
“…It is impossible to change voter turnout…Some polling parties report at midnight or the next day. Form 17C is matched before counting. There is nothing which VTR does not explain. It explains fully,” he said.
Addressing the EVM issue, CEC said, “There is no evidence of unreliability or any drawback in the EVM… There is no question of introducing a virus or bug in the EVM. There is no question of invalid votes in the EVM. No rigging is possible. High courts and the Supreme Court are continuously saying this in different judgments… What else can be said? EVMs are foolproof devices for counting. Allegations of tempering are baseless. We are speaking now because we don’t speak when elections are on.”
Kumar also cited court rulings at multiple occasions and said that “courts have ruled on 42 occasions that EVMs are not hackable, allegations of tampering totally baseless.”
“This is aimed at derailing the electoral process,” he added.
This comes amidst the opposition raising concerns regarding irregularities in electoral processes, with AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal recently accusing BJP of tampering with voters’ lists in Delhi. The former CM had alleged that there was an “unusual increase” in voter list modifications, including both removals and additions, specifically in New Delhi constituency.
Congress had also raised similar concerns during Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections, with Mallikarjun Kharge demanding ballot papers instead of EVMs.
