Despite winning the Assembly elections in the three States of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, Congress does not seem to get past its old complaints of EVM tampering.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi while addressing a press conference after the results of the elections came out, expressed concerns over the reliability of the EVMs. “Throughout the world, it is a generic question that EVM has problems. If the people are uncomfortable with EVM, it has to be addressed. The central issue concerning EVM still remains. There is a chip in EVM, which can be impacted and the whole election can be manipulated. The question of EVM is still on the table,” he said.
Despite the Election Commission’s repeated assurance that EVM is a standalone machine which disables if any attempt of tampering is made, Congress remains unconvinced about its reliability. Last year in June, after political parties repeatedly questioned the infallibility of EVM machines, the Election Commission had thrown an ‘Open Challenge’ before the political parties to prove that EVMs could be rigged. No political party which questioned the EVMs had turned up for the challenge. The representatives of the NCP and CPI-M who were the only ones to turn up at the event had merely stated that they were there to ‘understand the functioning’ of the EVMs.
Interestingly, Congress party raises the questions regarding EVM tampering only where it sees itself losing the election. As soon as the results of the Assembly Elections in the five State started coming out yesterday, the Congress party as usual resorted to the EVM tampering gimmick which is actually the brainchild of BSP Supremo Mayawati who used it after the Uttar Pradesh polls.
Even before the election results, seeing that it was going to be close call, Congress had already started raking up the EVM tampering issue. The party even approached the Election Commission with the complaint of EVM tampering in Madhya Pradesh. The Madhya Pradesh High Court had rejected a petition filed by Congress demanding the constitution of a SIT to examine the irregularities in the handling of EVMs.
A similar petition was filed by Congress in the Chhattisgarh High Court seeking directions to the Election Commission to maintain proper security of the Strong Rooms.
In Telangana also, the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee submitted a complaint to the State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) on Tuesday as TRS surged towards victory in the State polls.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee’s Uttam Kumar Reddy on #AssemblyElection2018 results: I am having doubts on results we’re getting in Telangana ballot paper counting. We’re doubting that tampering could have been done in EVMs. Slips should be counted in VVPATs. (File pic) pic.twitter.com/oqGpsaikjf
— ANI (@ANI) December 11, 2018
Recently the Congress Party had to face embarrassment when a sting done by India Today exposed the fallacy of Congress’ EVM tampering theory when its leaders were caught revealing that the EVM issue was maliciously used to defame the BJP.
Now when the Congress have won the Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh, the EVMs seem to have worked fine magically despite there being BJP governments in the three States as well as at the Centre. However, it seems that with the Congress President still talking about the EVM tampering issue after winning in three states, the Congress wants to keep the option of making the EVMs scapegoat open if they face election defeat in future.
