Assembly election results 2022: CEC Sushil Chandra rules out allegations of EVM tampering, says 'counting is a transparent proce
Categories: Election 2022
Rejecting the allegations levelled by Samajwadi Party of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) tempering, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sushil Chandra on Thursday said that there is no question of EVM tampering as the poll panel has always maintained utmost transparency.CEC said that “there is no question of EVM tampering. EVM are continuously used since 2004, by 2019 we have started maintaining voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) at every polling booth. After looking at them, EVMs are sealed in the presence of agents of political parties and their signatures are taken. Dealer EVMs are kept in a strong room under three-tier security.” “The mistake of the ADM was that he didn`t inform political parties about the movement of EVM for training purposes which was the standard operating procedure. Every EVM has some number. When people of a political party raised questions then we showed them the number of EVM, which was not matched with the EVM number meant for the poll. They found that the EVM number for the question that was raised did not match with the EVM numbers which were sealed and kept in the strong room for counting. After that they were satisfied.” Talking about the preparation done for counting day, Chandra said, "Counting is always done in a very transparent manner. It has a standard operating procedure under which we conduct the counting. Those who are only the agents of the authorized political party are allowed to come inside the counting centre. If anyone has any doubt or problem, he can approach our observer. It is our whole process which is completely transparent.”The CEC further elaborated that EVMs are covered in 3-tier security. “The agents of the political party outside the strong room are also monitoring there, video cameras are installed. Then the entire EVM is safe and at the end, there are 5 VVPATs in each assembly that we also count, so there is no discrepancy and it is totally transparent,” he said.