With increasing distrust over infallibility of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) across political circles, especially after Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly poll results, Minister for Information Technology and Bio-Technology (IT & BT) Priyank Kharge demanded Election Commission of India (EC) to have a “EVM hackathon” to effectively test the credibility of the machines.
Speaking to reporters here on Tuesday, he said: “After questions were raised over the infallibility and credibility of EVMs after Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, the EC had thrown a hackathon challenge to counter allegations of EVM tampering. But, the exercise was restricted to political parties alone. Political parties don’t have IT experts competent enough to hack the machines. If the same challenge is open to the public, many reputed companies, start-ups and even individual experts could participate and test the infallibility of the machines. Let a hackathon be organised under the vigilance of EC itself.” He also said that such a transparent exercise would lead to fixing loopholes in the existing machines and developing advanced machines that are more foolproof.
The minister also said that he would shortly write to EC in this regard as Chief Minister had already shown a green signal for it.
“Being an IT & BT Minister, I am the custodian of the state’s scientific community. It is my duty to encourage scientific awareness, rational thinking and questioning. When doubts over EVM’s credibility are being expressed in such a large scale, it is my duty to step forward to get a test done to ascertain the correctness and impartiality of the machines by involving experts in the field of science and technology,” he said.
To a question, Mr. Kharge said that he was neither against to the use of technology in election process nor was he opposed to the use of EVMs. He, however, wanted to bridge gaps and fix loopholes, apart from developing advanced EVMs.
