Batting for Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), former Chief Election Commissioner of India Navin B Chawla has said the EVMs could not be tampered with and the voters could trust them.
Delivering a talk on ‘Election in India’ under the distinguished lecture series arranged by the Department of Social Work and Voters’ Awareness Forum of Alagappa University here on Wednesday, he said the EVMs had a number of benefits and they could be trusted.
Pointing that every vote counted in a democracy, he exhorted young voters, especially the first- time voters to be aware of their democratic rights and exercise their franchise during elections. They should choose their right representatives and should preserve democracy, he said.
India had grown into a mature democracy in the last 70 years, he said adding unlike in some countries, the losers in the elections in India accepted the results. “This is a clear indication as to how democracy is upheld and sustained in India,” he said.
The Election Commission, an autonomous body, was doing a mammoth work of helping nearly 900 million voters to exercise their franchise during general elections and conducted the elections in efficient and effective manner, utilising the services of more than 2,000 senior civil servants.
Presiding over the function, N.Rajendran, Vice-Chancellor, Alagappa University, said election was an anchor-sheet of democracy and India had proved to be a vibrant democracy. The Indian history showed that the monarchs of India encouraged local self-government, he said adding inscriptions indicated as to how Chola Emperor Paranthaka–I encouraged self-government. The inscriptions also indicated the effective election process and the grass-root level democracy prevailed in the ancient Chola Kingdom. “They reveal that the Indians had all along been giving importance to democracy,” he said.
Collector J. Jayakanthan exhorted students, especially those who aspired to become civil servants, to learn Indian polity in deep. He asked students to study their subjects with interest and involvement, which would help them succeed in all types of competitive exams.
