EC rejects reports on illegal movement of EVMs in UP

Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer's (CEO) statement on Tuesday afternoon denying any breaches in the security of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and VVPAT (Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail) machines has been unable to quell the noise over the movement of these machines, less than two days before the vote count.

Afzal Ansari, the BSP-SP alliance candidate in Ghazipur who drew attention for a 20 hour sit-in protesting against the lack of security of the machines told THE WEEK that he was on his way to Delhi on Tuesday evening to present the matter before the Election Commission of India (ECI) if necessary. “The EVMs strong rooms are on a 60-acre campus and guarded only by eight personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), who are known to not even be able to prevent theft of opium from the factory in the district. Around 7.00pm on Monday, party workers shot videos of a truck bearing hundreds of EVMs. The sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) later explained that these were reserve machines which are on standby on polling days to ensure uninterrupted voting in case of malfunctioning EVMs. But why move them in such a manner that gives rise to suspicions. And why were we not given prior information that there would be such a movement,” Ansari said. Ghazipur voted in the last phase of polling on May 19.

Ansari himself denies seeing the truck which bore the EVMs or the private vehicles which he claims were later allowed to enter the Mandi Parishad campus where the machines are stored. He says that his initial demand was only to strengthen security of the campus. “We had demanded that party workers be allowed to keep a watch over these rooms from a permissible distance, the CISF be replaced by central paramilitary forces and that candidates be given access to feed from CCTV machines installed in the strong rooms,” he says. From 7.30pm on Monday to 4.30am on Tuesday Ansari sat on a dharna, with a swelling crowd of supporters and onlookers, till assured by the SDM that the demands would be met. “The crowd was getting out of hand and we did not want to create any disturbances,” he insists. While the candidates (14 in Ghazipur) have since been allowed to deploy workers on eight hour shifts for watch duty, the other two demands, he says, shall be met on Tuesday evening.

Sanjay Singh Chauhan, the SP-BSP alliance candidate in Chandauli from whom the ECI had received complaint of reserved machines being moved to the strong rooms without prior information to political parties, says that the government is rattled about election results. “The people have spoken and voted against this government no matter what the exit polls say. There is huge mischief afoot. Why were reserve EVMs not moved to safe keeping after the closing of polls,” he told THE WEEK. Chandauli, from where the BJP state president Mahendra Nath Pandey is in the fray, went to the polls in the seventh phase.

Juhie Singh, spokesperson of the Samajwadi Party says that the in an election as sensitive as the current one, the Election Commission of India (ECI) should have acted swiftly and with greater transparency to dispel any misgivings. “There is somewhere a crisis of faith in the process. When people began tagging the ECI in videos from different locations, there should have been immediate intervention. But during this whole election, the ECI has been unusually unresponsive to complaints”, she told THE WEEK. She also attributes the spread of these rumours to a majority of the exit polls which predicted a clean sweep by the BJP-led NDA. “Exit polls are not the gospel truth. But when they predict with such certainty that we are losing certain seats such as Mainpuri (from which Mulayam Singh Yadav is contesting) the candidates and party workers are bound to get jittery,”she says.

Alka Verma, the Joint CEO, UP told THE WEEK: “There is impenetrable three-layer security in place to guard the EVMs. People must not circulate videos or information without verification. We are committed to ensure that the election process is completely fair.”

The UP CEO’s statement said that complaints had been received from four constituencies—Ghazipur, Chandauli, Jhansi and Domariyaganj—and that these had been investigated. “All political parties and candidates have expressed their approval of the measures in place,” it read.