Hundreds of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supporters staged a protest outside the Election Commission of India office, demanding VVPAT-equipped electronic voting machines (EVMs) to be used in all future elections.
Crowds started arriving with placards and shouting slogans such as " Vote chori band karo [Stop stealing votes]" and " Loktantra ki hatya band karo [Stop the murder of democracy]".
Senior AAP leaders Gopal Rai and Somnath Bharti and MLAs Alka Lamba, Son Dutt, Sanjeev Jha and Bhawna Gaur were present.
"Our primary demand is that all EVMs henceforth should be equipped with VVPATs. The people of this country deserve free and fair elections," said Mr. Rai, party's Delhi convenor.
They have asked the Election Commission to announce the date of the hackathon at the all-party meeting that has been called on Friday.
Madhulika Kumar, AAP candidate who contested in the recent Delhi municipal elections, said she was receiving calls from friends and relatives asking her where their votes went.
"I had at least got 100 votes and the results showed that I got one vote. Where did the rest of the votes go?" she said.
AAP MLA from Malviya Nagar, Mr. Bharti, said the first step by the party would be to participate in the all-party meeting and then the future course of action would be decided.
"We will only be able to speak about the Election Commission's stand once we attend the hackathon. No elections should be held without VVPAT machines. In 2013, the Supreme Court ordered that without the VVPATs, the elections cannot happen free and fair," he said.
The Commission would not be able to function effectively with such casual attitude towards democracy and people's right to choose their representatives, he said.
Social media also picked up AAP's protest against the EVM tampering. #SaveDemocracy was trending on Twitter on Thursday.
