Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party, a political party in India, staged a "live demonstration" of alleged Electronic Voter Machine manipulation in the Delhi Assembly.
AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj claimed that anyone knowing a "secret code" can tamper with the EVMs and the code can be fed into a machine while casting vote.
The Election Commission has time and again rubbished allegations that EVMs can be programmed to favour any particular party.
Before Bhardwaj's demonstration, Kejriwal tweeted, "Saurabh Bhardwaj will reveal the truth behind a big conspiracy in the country. Satyameva Jayate ( May the truth prevail)".
Bhardwaj claimed that in his capacity as an engineer, he had extensively worked in this area and was aware of how the machines can be fiddled with.
Meanwhile, Party leader and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal has asked the Election commission of India to give them an EVM and added that it will only take them 90 seconds to hack it.
His associate Manish Sisodia added that it would only take them 3 days to hack EVMS across Delhi.
Here is a video of the live demo:
RT ndtv: #AAP demonstrates how to rig a vote machine #EVM #DelhiAssembly
— Pratyush Mayank (@pratyushmayank) May 9, 2017
Watch LIVE: https://t.co/TVZWeP9VtC pic.twitter.com/iIsxCsUr6D
SC seeks ECI's affidavit: Pleas against EVMs without VVPAT
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court in India today asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to file an affidavit giving details of how much fund they have received from the Centre to procure paper trail equipment for use with electronic voting machines.
A bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer gave the direction to the ECI after senior counsel P Chidambaram, appearing for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), referred to media reports and said the Centre has sanctioned funds for procurement of voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT).
The Union Cabinet had last month cleared ECI's proposal for Rs 3,174 crore to procure the VVPAT equipments for use in the future elections.
"The ECI is here. Let them file a counter affidavit detailing as to when these machines (VVPAT) will be used in elections. Elections for some states are coming. Let them say this specifically," Chidambaram told the bench.
The apex court is hearing two petitions, including the one filed by Mayawati-led BSP which, after the drubbing in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, has claimed large scale tampering of EVMs.
During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) P S Narsimha told the apex court that funds have been cleared for procuring VVPAT.
However, the bench said, "they (petitioners) want to know what is the amount given and when will you use it. You file a counter affidavit".
To this, Narsimha said he would file an affidavit in this regard.
"List the matters in the third week of July. In the meantime, counter affidavit be filed," the bench said.
The apex court on April 13 had sought responses from the Centre and ECI on the pleas challenging the use of EVMs without paper trail.
The petitioner had earlier told the bench that the use of EVMs without VVPAT created serious doubts about the accuracy of voting and a paper trail was needed so that the voter gets a feedback of the vote cast by him.
They had said that to ensure accuracy in the voting process, paper trail was needed as there were chances of tampering with the EVMs. They had also quoted reports that both the hardware and the software of these machines were "vulnerable".
They had said that around three lakh VVPAT attachments were required for the entire country which would could cost around Rs 3,000 crore.