Amidst the EVM hacking propaganda spined by various opposition parties, the Election Commission Tuesday set up a 24-hour control room at the Nirvachan Sadan, New Delhi, to monitor complaints relating to EVMs.
“The complaints related to storage issues at strongrooms, security of strongrooms, permissions to candidates to post their agents at strongrooms, CCTV monitoring, movement of any EVMs, and any complaints during counting related to EVMs can be informed at control room, number is 011-23052123 (with 5 hunting lines),” the EC said.
Ever since the Exit Polls for the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections were released, the Opposition parties have initiated a concerted effort to discredit the EVMs used in these elections. The Congress President, the Deputy CM of Delhi from the Aam Aadmi Party, numerous other senior politicians from other Opposition parties and even some journalists have been peddling fake news and bizarre allegations against EVMs.
In the latest bid, 21 opposition parties met the officials of the Election Commission of India (EC) on Tuesday to submit a memorandum duly signed by their party representatives claiming that EVM guidelines were flouted during the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.
Under such circumstances, the EC has issued clarifications saying that it would like to “emphatically and unambiguously” clarify that all such reports and allegations are “absolutely false and factually incorrect.”
”The visuals aired on TV and social media do not pertain to any EVMs used during the polls”, it furthered.
The EC had also stated that post-polls all EVMs and VVPATs are brought under security cover to designated strongrooms, which are sealed with double locks in the presence of candidates and observers of the commission. The entire process of storage and sealing of the strongroom is video recorded.
“Continuous CCTV camera coverage is done till completion of counting. Each strongroom is guarded with round-the-clock security by Central Armed Police Forces”, it said.
To add insult to injury, former President Pranab Mukherjee has hailed the EC for conducting the 2019 Lok Sabha elections ‘perfectly.’
What is more appalling is that despite the Supreme Court dismissing the petition to seek 100% matching of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during the counting of votes on May 23, the opposition parties are in no mood to relent from cooking up unnecessary controversies.
However, all the speculations and bickering will soon be put to rest after the curtains to the election results are drawn on May 23.