Maharashtra’s ruling alliance condemns Assam EVM incident, calls it BJP-EC nexus

The ruling coalition in Maharashtra have condemned an incident in Assam where an electronic voting machine (EVM) was found in a car belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate’s wife, following the second phase of the election on Thursday

The ruling coalition in Maharashtra have condemned an incident in Assam where an electronic voting machine (EVM) was found in a car belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate’s wife, following the second phase of the election on Thursday.

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The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) partners – Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress – on Friday said the incident puts the credibility of the Election Commission in question and that poll body should take steps to clean up its act.

NCP has also demanded a criminal inquiry into the incident.

“EVM in a BJP candidate’s car is a serious matter. People already have doubts over EVMs, and this [incident] has added to it. It is also a breach of the election code of conduct. This needs to be thoroughly investigated and a case must be filed against both the officials concerned and the BJP candidate in whose car the EVM was found,” said NCP’s chief spokesperson and state minority affairs minister Nawab Malik.

The incident occurred at Karimganj district in Ratabari constituency, where the EC staff took a private vehicle without checking its ownership after the vehicle assigned to them broke down. The private car belonged to the wife of Krishnendu Paul, a BJP candidate from the nearby Patharkandi seat.

The Shiv Sena said it was a classic example of how the BJP wins the elections.

“They do this EVM tampering very selectively and this is how their whole poll machinery works,” said Sena parliamentarian and former Union minister Arvind Sawant.

“Imagine, the EC officials took the car of a BJP leader to transport EVM to the store room and they claim they just took a random car. All this raises suspicion,” said Sawant.

The Congress said such incidents only derail the faith of citizens in the democratic process.

“All this is a part of the dirty game by BJP, and even the EC is unable to rein them,” said Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant.

Former Union minister and Congress leader Milind Deora recalled the incident in 2019 when he had lodged a complaint with EC about the tampering of EVMs in Mumbai.

“During the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, I received reliable information that EC officials were in nexus with the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) candidates, and had done some mischief with EVM machines. In that case, however, no one got caught like in Assam, where it’s seems to be a direct nexus between EC officials and ruling party,” said Deora.

He said that he does not believe in technological hacking, but physical hacking by such instances is possible,” said Deora, the former head of the Mumbai Congress, who had fought the Lok Sabha seat in 2019.

The state BJP has refuted the allegations of party involvement in the incident.

“If we wanted to manipulate the machines, how come the seal was intact? EC is an independent body and functions autonomously. If we had so much control on EC, we would have won all the states hands down. The problem with our opponents is EVMs are perfect where they win and manipulated when they lose,” said BJP legislator Ram Kadam.