AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj on Tuesday at a Special session of the Delhi Assembly demonstrated how Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) can be manipulated. He showed how simple it was for an engineering graduate like himself to rig a voting machine, and challenged scientists to prove him wrong. AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal had blamed the party’s loss in the recent Punjab Assembly elections to the rigging of voting machines.
Bhardwaj, who told the Assembly that he had a BTech degree in computer science and that he had worked on microprocessors and micro-controllers for years as an occupation, said, “An ordinary engineering graduate like me can manipulate an EVM by working on it for just 10 to 15 days.”
The special session of the Delhi Assembly began with high drama, and within 15 minutes the leader of opposition Vijender Gupta was marshalled out after he was given three warnings by Assembly speaker Ram Niwas Goel. After that, all eyes were on Bhardwaj who, during a 40-minute demonstration, showed using a prototype of an EVM, how the voting machines could easily be rigged.
He claimed that the motherboard of the machines could be changed in just 90 seconds. “EVM machines can be tampered with, and it is just a matter of 90 seconds to change the machine’s motherboard,” Bharadwaj said.
The Election Commission had repeatedly been saying that EVMs are tamper-proof and had challenged parties making allegations to prove how they can be rigged. Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati had also raised doubts over BJP’s resounding victory in Uttar Pradesh, saying it was gained by tampering with EVMs. She had pointed to the BJP’s vote share in Muslim majority areas to substantiate her argument that that it would not have been possible for the saffron party to get that many votes in those areas, if not for EVM fraud.
Kejriwal’s and Mayawati’s claims had been dismissed by the Election Commission but on Tuesday, Bharadwaj managed to sow doubts in the minds of the public with his demonstration.
Here’s how he did the demo.
First, Bharadwaj followed the normal procedure
Bhardwaj then demonstrated how results changed after entering a secret code
The MLA said this was possible by entering a secret code that is assigned to every constituency. He claimed that before voting begins, election officials demonstrate that everything is done fairly but after 10 am on voting day, a “manipulator” activates a secret code, which ensures that all votes cast thereafter would go to a particular candidate.
“There are secret codes that can be used to decide on the day of voting which candidate will win. Give us access to the EVMs that will be used in the Gujarat election for three hours, I challenge that the BJP will not even win a single seat,” Bharadwaj said, while demonstrating how the EVM could be tampered with.
The AAP Twitter handle also put out a tweet explaining how the votes were cast in the demo, and how the outcome was different.
After the demo, the special Assembly session adopted a resolution and requested the Election commission of India to organise elections with Voter Verfied Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines. The special session was attended by various other party leaders of the JDU and CPI(M), including Nilotpal Basu and Manoj Jha who raised question over EVM tampering.
The Election Commission of India (ECI), however, dismissed AAP’s demonstration, claiming that the machine hacked in the Delhi Assembly demo was a not an authorised or actual gadget used by the ECI. The poll panel claimed the demonstration was done only on a ‘look-alike’ machine. In an official statement the poll panel said, “It is common sense that gadgets other than ECI-EVMs can be programmed to perform in a pre-determined way, but it simply cannot be implied that ECI-EVMs will behave in the same manner because they are technically secured and function under an elaborate administrative and security protocol."
The special session was attended by almost 50 MLAs including Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy CM Manish Sisodia. Responding to the ECI’s comments, Sidodia said, “This is not your machine versus my machine. Democracy is in danger. An EVM can be hacked in 90 seconds.”
Arvind Kejriwal, who was also present throughout the session, asked the Election Commission to handover actual EVM machines on which they would demonstrate how they can be hacked. “We have been saying this to Election Commission to hand over actual EVM machines that have been used in the previous election,” Kejriwal said after the assembly session.
The Election Commission later put out a challenge asking AAP to demonstrate the same at a hackathon it proposes to conduct. The ECI has been saying for weeks that it plans to conduct a hackathon and thre an open challenge to anyone willing to prove that EVMs could be tampered with. However, the ECI has been dithering on announcing a date for the hackathon, and has not yet set a date.
Meanwhile, allegations raised by AAP MLA Kapil Mishra against Chief Minister Kejriwal were not addressed at the Assembly session. The Anti-corruption Bureau on Tuesday registered a case against the company that was being run by Kejriwal's brother-in-law, which has come under the scanner in an alleged PWD scam. Kejriwal’s brother died on Monday morning due to cardiac arrest.
“We have registered a case against unknown persons and will call company officials to record their statement. A case has been registered under prevention of corruption act,” ACB official said. No leader of AAP including Arvind Kejriwal reacted on the corruption allegations levelled against Kejriwal and Minister Satyendra Jain.
(With inputs from ENS in New Delhi)