Congress and other opposition parties like AAP seem to have already given up on the recent state elections as they are now claiming of EVM malfunctioning and hacking by the BJP during the assembly elections held in Madhya Pradesh on November 28.
Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh had tweeted as early as 9:38 am on the day of the elections claiming that EVMs were malfunctioning in constituencies where Congress is strong. At 9:44 am, Congress leader Kamal Nath, too, tried to float a conspiracy theory with regards to EVM malfunctioning. Jyotiraditya Scindia had written a letter to the Chief Electoral office (CEO) of Madhya Pradesh requesting information on the malfunctioning EVMs and VVPAT machines.
Following Scindia’s letter, the CEO of Madhya Pradesh had reaffirmed that EVMs are tamper-proof and each EVM machine was protected by safely securing and sealing them in strong rooms. He further assured that EVMs are being jointly surveilled by the security officials and political party members.
However, the usual detractors who have a mutual relationship with both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress tried to propagate a false narrative regarding the tampering of EVMs. The CEO of Madhya Pradesh Elections had to soon step in and school the trolls for resorting to damaging the credibility of the Election Commission.
These are EVMs kept as ‘Reserve’ stationed at some Police stations, to be used as replacement for malfunctioning machines during Poll. Such machines were to be stored separately from polled EVMs. Strong room having Polled EVMs was neither opened nor was supposed to be opened. https://t.co/bgZvJ6YKdt
— CEOMPElections (@CEOMPElections) November 30, 2018
However, few supporters of the Congress did not want to accept the explanation given by the CEO of Madhya Pradesh. They instead wanted Election Commission to conduct a hackathon to prove that EVMs are not vulnerable to tampering. The election commission, however, replied that it had already conducted a hackathon in which political parties did not participate.
Election Commission has already conducted EVM challenge in which no political party turned up https://t.co/iu2uwrihrH
— CEOMPElections (@CEOMPElections) December 1, 2018
Soon after the clarification issued by the EC, Congress supporter Tehseen Poonwalla, who is a relative to Robert Vadra responded claiming that the election commission officials were arrogant and resorting to lies regarding the credibility of EVMs. The CEO, MP had to school him regarding the basic principle of hacking any machines.
The basic principle of hacking is to control any machine from remote location. https://t.co/oOdaS76AeR
— CEOMPElections (@CEOMPElections) December 1, 2018
Some AAP supporters targetted the Election Commission claiming that it had allowed BJP to take control of the commission and had tampered the EVMs. The election commission, however, rubbished the allegations terming it fake.
The fact reported is false https://t.co/w99iAbicFd
— CEOMPElections (@CEOMPElections) December 1, 2018
The fact reported is false https://t.co/0P9FqdTIeo
— CEOMPElections (@CEOMPElections) December 1, 2018
This is not the first time, Opposition parties like Congress and AAP have been indulging in furthering conspiracy theories about EVMs after humiliating losses in state elections. Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh had claimed that EVMs can be ‘tampered’ at ‘coding stage’ while writing the software. Aam Aadmi Party MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj had humiliated himself after he had ‘demonstrated’ EVM hacking on a toy EVM which could be bought off the Internet.
Previously, during the Gujarat Assembly Elections last year, self-proclaimed journalist and Congress loyalist Sagarika Ghose had come up with her bizarre research claiming that EVMs can be hacked via Bluetooth.
With EVM malfunctioning, hacking, tampering theories already making the rounds, one wonders if they have already conceded the elections to BJP. If they do end up losing, the theories are just going to be amplified and EVMs are going to be the unfortunate culprits for Congress’ electoral loss.
