NEW DELHI: Rejecting the Congress’ allegations after the Haryana assembly poll results, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Tuesday said after the EVM tampering row, questions are being raised on the strength of battery charge and wondered what next accusation would come.
Addressing a press conference here to announce the poll schedule for Jharkhand and Maharashtra assemblies, Kumar, while referring to the allegations of the Congress of tampering of EVMs in some Haryana seats where machines with varying battery strength gave out different results, said earlier allegations of hacking were made “but this has come up for the first time”.
“Now we are thinking what will come next, we can’t fathom. But certainly something new will come up,” he added. He asserted that around six days prior to the poll day, EVMs are commissioned and election symbols of candidates are loaded and a new battery is installed, which has the signatures of candidates or their authorised agents.
“Leave alone EVM, even batteries (installed) have signatures of candidates. Even we were not aware (of this rule) as it was framed long back. Now it is helping us,” the CEC said responding to a series of questions on the reliability of the machines and concerns flagged on battery.
Kumar also said that people ask if pagers can be used to blow up people in some countries, why can’t EVMs be hacked? “Pagers are connected (to the network), EVMs are not,” he asserted.
Pagers sold to Hezbollah and Lebanese officials had exploded recently, triggering claims that their batteries were rigged with explosives.
Giving details of the Complaints the Commission has received so far after the assembly elections in Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir, Kumar said, 20 such representations have been submitted. “We will give detailed responses to each of the complaints and put our response in public domain,” he said, adding that the panel would come out with detailed ‘FAQs’ to satisfy all stakeholders.
Last week, Congress leaders had said complaints had been received from Hisar, Mahendragarh and Panipat that there were electronic voting machines with 99 per cent battery on which the BJP won while units with 60-70 per cent battery saw the Congress win.
Meanwhile, the CEC also said that exit polls create expectations that cannot always be met, and before getting hopes up, one should look into the specifics of the exit poll- like where it was held and what was the sample size. This, he said, is an occasion where the media must introspect and correct itself.
“We don’t govern exit polls - but there is a need to introspect - what was the sample size etc. There are bodies that self-regulate. Time has come that the concerned bodies will do some self-regulation,” the CEC noted, while pointing that the “gap between expectation and reality can lead to frustration”, as one cannot expect the results trends to match the exit polls.