Allow parties to supervise EVM coding software: Digvijaya Singh to Election Commission

NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh today urged the Election Commission to allow political parties to supervise the coding software of electronic voting machines (EVMs).

His demand comes in the wake of the poll body throwing an open challenge to hack its EVMs following a chorus by Opposition parties on alleged tampering of the machines in the recent state Assembly elections, especially in Uttar Pradesh where BJP staged a stunning victory.

Singh said the Commission, instead of limiting its objections to EVM hacking, should also allow examination of its software at the stage of writing it from the server.

"EC limiting objections to EVMs. It must allow examination of possibility of software tampering at stage of writing it from server. There is a strong possibility of tampering coding at the stage of writing software i.e. EVMs can be pre-tampered. So no need for hacking...

"EC must devise a way of supervision by political parties of the coding software of EVMs, like it does at subsequent stages. Would they agree?" he tweeted.

The Election Commission had announced that from first week of May, experts, scientists and technocrats can try for a week or 10 days to hack the machines.

The move comes after opposition parties urged the poll panel to revert to paper ballot system, raising doubts over infallibility of the voting machines.