Amid the raging row over alleged tampering of electronic voting machines (EVMs), the Election Commission of India today again asserted that its EVMs are "not tamperable" and that it is "fully satisfied with the tamper-proof functioning" of its EVMs.
In a hard-hitting response to the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)'s 25 March petition regarding the alleged tamperability of EVMs in the context of recent Punjab assembly elections, the Election Commission (EC) maintained that given a multi-layered "effective technical and administrative safeguards" EVMs could not be tampered and that "the integrity of electoral process is fully preserved".
In its reply to the AAP today, the EC said, "The Commission has put in place an eleborate technical and administrative system of safeguards to ensure error-free functioning of EVMs in elections. It is for your party to introspect as to why your party could not perform as per your expectations and it is unfair on the part of your party to attribute unsatisfactory poll performance of your party to the alleged tamperability of EVMs".
Rejecting the AAP's demand for verification of votes cast in EVMs with voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) in Punjab assembly polls, the EC made it clear that the AAP is free to file an election petition in the High Court concerned in this regard.
The country's apex poll body quoted rules to state that "after the declaration of result only alternative avilable to verify the data of votes cast is to file an Election Petition before the competent court i.e. High Court concerned".
Following the results of recent assembly elections in five states, the BSP chief Mayawati, the AAP's Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Congress party have questioned the credibility and reliability of EVMs.
On Saturday, seizing on alleged malfunctioning of an EVM-VVPAT in favour of the BJP during demonstration in presence of the top poll officials in Madhya Pardesh's Bhind ahead of 9 April bypolls there, Mr Kejriwal and a Congress delegation had separately met the EC, demanding a thorough probe and a return to conduct of elections through the old system of ballot papers instead of EVMs.
The ruling BJP has also rejected such allegations of EVM tampering, asserting that it has full faith in the EC.