Election Commission Slams AAP For Blaming EVMs, Asks Kejriwal To Introspect On Party’s Performance

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Sunday advised the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), led by Arvind Kejriwal, to introspect about its ‘unsatisfactory poll performance’ in the assembly elections rather than attributing it to the alleged failure of electronic voting machines (EVMs).

"It is for your party to introspect as to why your party could not perform as per your expectations and it is unfair on the part of your party to attribute unsatisfactory poll performance of your party to the alleged tamperability of EVMs. The Commission is fully satisfied with the tamper proof functioning of the ECI-EVMs," the ECI said in a strongly-worded letter addressed to the AAP.

The letter further said that the Supreme Court had never cast any aspersion or expressed any doubt that election process was rigged by use of EVMs. Hence, the Commission “strongly objects to this wrong and imaginary extrapolation of the Supreme Court's order. This may please be noted as a responsible political party”.

Soon after its electoral debacle in Punjab, AAP had said that the EVM’s can be tampered with. Kejriwal had asked the EC to crosscheck votes polled with the voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) data.

Rejecting the AAP’s plea for verifications of votes, the EC said such allegations have been dismissed by various high courts “unequivocally reiterating that given the effective technical and administrative safeguards, EVMs are not tamperable and integrity of electoral process is fully preserved.”

With inputs from ANI

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