The Election Commission claimed that complaints were exaggerated

In a scenario where every seat counts, every election is seen as an indicator of public mood, the keenly watched by-polls in four Lok Sabha and nine assembly constituencies on Monday once again witnessed the ruling parties and opposition trade barbs as allegations of EVM malfunctioning marred polling in a number of seats on Monday.

Complaints came from nearly everywhere, but most were from the more crucial or sensitive states of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Even when the voting was underway, opposition parties and the ruling BJP moved the EC in the national capital claiming that “hundreds” of EVMs and paper trail machines deployed for Kairana and Noorpur bypolls developed snags and were not replaced for hours.

The most serious charges came from Kairana Lok Sabha constituency, where EC decided to hold repoll in 73 polling booths. The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alleged that electronic voting machines (EVMs) have been tampered with in Dalit and Muslim dominated areas during the bypolls in Kairana.

RLD candidate in Kairana Tabassum Hasan shot a letter to the Election Commission alleging that EVMs and VVPATs were deliberately tampered with and no action has been initiated to fix them. The complaint pertains to EVM tampering and malfunctions being reported from different localities of five Assembly segments of the parliamentary constituency. According to Tabassum, 18 booths in Shamli, 11 booths in Kairana and 21 booths in Gangoh Assembly constituency faced issues related to EVM malfunctioning.

Tabassum told news agency ANI, EVMs are being tampered everywhere and faulty machines haven’t been replaced in the Muslim- and Dalit-dominated areas.

“I’ve been continuously receiving complaints. They didn’t expect so many ppl to come out to vote in Ramzan. Initial strategy was to hold elections in Ramzan so that ppl won’t vote,” she said.

Tabassum Hassan, Rashtriya Lok Dal candidate for the Kairana Lok Sabha seat, wrote to the Election Commission alleging voting machines and paper trail devices developed snags at more than 150 of the 941 booths just after polling started at 7am.

“It cannot be a coincidence that the machines are not working where there is a substantial turnout of Muslim and Dalit voters. I handed a written complaint to the poll panel but nothing has been done though several hours have passed,” she told reporters.

The RLD – supported by Samajwadi Party and BSP – is in direct contest with the incumbent BJP. The election on Kairana Lok Sabha seat was necessitated due to the death of BJP MP Hukum Singh. His daughter Mriganka Singh is taking on Begum in the bypoll.

Speaking to Outlook, RLD’s organisation secretary for Uttar Pradesh, Rajkumar Sangwan said EVMs are found faulty in over 250 booths. “The Muslims, who are fasting on Ramzan, are standing on the queue for over three hours due to faulty EVMs and the district administration is not taking any action to fix them,” he said.

Naeemul Hasan, Samajwadi Party candidate for the Noorpur Assembly seat, also complained about EVMs, saying the paper trail machines were non-functional at 113 of the 351 booths.

Hitting out at the faulty EVMs, Samajwadi Party’s Rajendra Chaudhary said, “There are reports that in Noorpur 140 EVMs are faulty, which is because they’ve been tampered, there are similar reports from Kairana. They (BJP) want to avenge defeat in Phulpur & Gorakhpur, which is why they want to defeat us at any cost,” he was quoted as saying by ANI.

“Thousands of EVMs are not working. Thirsty and hungry farmers, labourers, women and youths are standing in queues in the scorching sun,” SP national president Akhilesh Yadav tweeted during the polling.

In Maharashtra, voting in 35 booths of Maharashtra Bhandara–Gondiya Lok Sabha seat was temporarily suspended due to complaints of faulty EVMs. “Voting temporarily suspended for now at 35 polling booths due to faulty Electronic Voting Machines (EVM),” District Magistrate Abhimanyu Kale was quoted as saying.

Media reports said amid Opposition’s allegations of nearly 25 per cent EVMs being used in the bypoll in the Bhandara-Gondiya parliamentary constituency on Monday were malfunctioning, the Election Commission said all defective machines were been replaced.

However, calling the reports of largescale voting machine malfunction “an exaggeration”, the Election Commission  said the “severe heat conditions” were interfering with the machines.

The EC said reports of ‘large-scale’ failure of EVMs were “exaggerated projection of reality” even as complaints mounted about problems with machines, including in Uttar Pradesh’s Kairana, where BJP is trying to retain the Lok Sabha seat against a united Opposition in a communally-charged election.

Media reports said the poll panel blamed inept handling of the paper-trail machines for votes by the ground staff, especially when the temperature is high, for malfunctioning in some areas. District magistrate of Shamli district says that VVPAT machines had problems and not EVMs.

Not satisfied, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad urged political parties to come together and boycott use of EVMs, alleging that faults were being “purposely generated” in EVMs.

He claimed the new machines used to replace the faulty ones already had polled votes. Azad, who was in Maharashtra for an iftar party at the Congress state headquarters, claimed the BJP was banking on “theft” of votes. He said he was saddened that even the EC has not taken any action.

Tehseen Poonawalla, writing in Time of India (TOI), questioned the EC’s stand on EVMs. He said “the ECI now admits that EVMS can be hacked , totally contradictory to its earlier stand , but rules out the possibility, citing that it is impossible to lay hands on the EVMs.”

Raising doubts about the dependability of EVMs, he said that EC reply to various RTI applications revealed several theft of EVMs particularly from BJP ruled states.

To add to this the ECI has no records of technicians from the 2 PSUs BHEL & ECIL ( Electronics Corporation of India Limited ) who are engaged in maintenance of the machines. Moreover , there exists no records of how many technicians from the 2PSUs who were earlier engaged with maintenance of EVMs have left their service since the 1st generation of EVMs were introduced and have since now taken up private employment.

During the general elections, he added , ECI engages several private technicians to service the approx 8lacs EVMs ( 5 laga in use). However no records exists about these people, if whether these technicians are late engaged by any political organization.

Casting doubts on the way Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT)  is used, he said it is meant to show voters that their votes went to the candidate they desired to vote for. But the paper used in VVPAT is thermal paper and the ink disappears in about 4 months. Also on the paper trail, there exists no barcode or numbering to tally the votes. Therefore, in several cases, despite VVPAT , votes in the machine & paper trail did not tally .

Finally, he said, the ECI says that it is not possible to tamper and manipulate every single EVM. However , all EVMs need not be hacked since, on an average, most assembly elections are won or lost by a near margin of < 10,000 votes. So only a few EVMs needs to be manipulated to alter the results, he said.