NEW DELHI: AAP’s South Delhi candidate Raghav Chadha on Monday urged the Election Commission to appoint an independent observer for exclusively overseeing the safety and security of EVMs.
“Alarming as it may be, this would not be the first time that an attack on the electoral system may take place. We request that the CRPF security at Jijabai Institute where South Delhi’s EVMs are housed be tightened. It is further requested that additional CRPF personnel may be deployed to keep watch over the strong rooms around the clock,” Chadha wrote in his letter, highlighting the “attack on electoral system”.
Chadha, who has constantly taking up issues with the Commission, wrote that he “has strong reasons to believe that the political adversaries will attempt to open the strong rooms and manipulate or replace the machines as a handful of such incidents have been seen in the past”.
In addition, the AAP leader also sought the appointment of another independent observer by the Commission. “I have received information from credible sources that our political opponents have planned attempts to gerrymander with the EVMs either on the night of May 21 or May 22 to the hours leading up to the actual counting,” he wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora. “Until the declaration of results, the observer must ensure safe custody and integrity of EVMs.”
Earlier, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh and Chadha reached the Election Commission to highlight the complaints they received regarding the strong room where EVMs are kept in South Delhi.