The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday demanded the Election Commission (EC) to strengthen and upgrade the security system of electronic voting machines (EVMs).
AAP Punjab affairs co-in-charge Raghav Chadha has written a letter to the chief election officer (CEO) Punjab, demanding that EVMs should be monitored under a three-layer security system to remove the possibility of EVM tampering.
Chadha, in his letter, demanded from the EC that the voting process for the Punjab Assembly elections has been completed peacefully, but various candidates of the Aam Aadmi Party have expressed concern over the lack of adequate security arrangements in the buildings where EVMs are kept. The reports are coming that buildings don’t have proper lighting and security.
The AAP leader made four demands from the CEO. These included monitoring of EVMs with triple-layered security for the strong room, the deployment of paramilitary forces outside the strong room including the current police security, adequate number of CCTV cameras inside and outside the strong rooms.
The movement of people inside the strong room should be recorded on CCTV and an online link of live feed should be provided to all the candidates to clear their doubts, he said.
Chadha said to strengthen democracy, it is the duty of the EC to ensure free, fair, and transparent elections, which is one of the bases of the Constitution of India. Free and transparent elections can be held only when the EVMs in which the sentiments of two crore people of Punjab are stored is completely safe.
Many other parties, including the Aam Aadmi Party, fear that EVMs may not be completely secure in the present security system. Therefore, the EC should seriously consider AAP’s demands to ensure the safety of EVMs and remove the apprehensions of all the candidates immediately, he said.