The Election Commission has thrown an open challenge to all the political parties to hack - on Sunday and Monday - the Electronic Voting Machines owned, maintained and secured by the poll panel.

The debate on EVM tampering began after the Assembly elections in five states. The BJP formed governments in four of the states. BSP president Mayawati was the first one to question the reliability of the EVMs.

Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party launched a campaign against the EVM claiming that it could be hacked in 90 seconds. AAP legislator Saurabh Bhardawaj staged a demonstration in the Delhi Assembly to prove that EVM could be hacked.

The political debate on EVM has put the credibility of the electoral process in the country and that of the Election Commission at stake. This has led to the poll panel throwing an open challenge to all.

But, this is not the first time that the Election Commission has been forced to assert that its EVMs are tamper-proof.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

The reliability of the EVM first came under the doubt after a techie Hari K Prasad claimed that these machines could be hacked or tampered with way back in 2010.

Prasad claimed that along with 'some American scientists', he had hacked the EVM used in India. He also claimed that with some changes in the hardware changes, the EVMs could be programmed to favour a particular candidate.

It was widely reported then. A BBC report said, "They (the hacking team of Prasad) have developed a technique to hack into Indian electronic voting machines."

This claim by Hari K Prasad came amid doubts being raised by some of the political party leaders including those from the BJP after the parliamentary elections of 2009, when the Manmohan Singh government had won the second consecutive term.

The Election Commission had then thrown a similar challenge, like it has done now, to all those raising doubts to come and prove that EVMs were not reliable. BJP's Kirit Somaiya had even visited the Election Commission office and returned satisfied.

JORHAT CASE OF 2014

By the next Lok Sabha elections, the tables were turning. It was reported in April 2014 that during the mandatory mock drill in Jorhat, Assam, the EVM seemed programmed to benefit the BJP.

Reports suggested that every time a button was pressed the vote went in favour of the BJP. The issue came to light just days ahead of the voting for the Lok Sabha elections in Jorhat.

Later, the Election Commission officials clarified that the EVM used for the mock drill was defective and was readied for demonstration in the presence of the representative from all the political parties. However, the Congress went on to lodge a complaint demanding inspection of all the EVMs to be used in Assam.

Matter settled when the Election Commission assured that none of the faulty EVMs would be used for voting.

BHIND INCIDENT

Three years hence, Bhind incident happened when it was reported that the EVM routed votes of other parties to the BJP. The incident happened again during mock drill.

The Election Commission officials of Madhya Pradesh held a demonstration of EVMs ahead of Assembly bypolls to show how Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPAT) worked.The local reports from Bhind suggested that EVMs left paper trail showing more votes in favour of the BJP than were actually cast for it.

The reports came close on the heels of the Assembly elections in five states and in the backdrop of Mayawati accusing the BJP of tampering the EVM in Uttar Pradesh while Arvind Kejriwal leveled the same charge against the same party in Punjab.

The reports from Bhind made the entire Opposition skeptical of the reliability of the EVMs. The Election Commission launched an internal probe and suspended as many as 19 officials.

The Election Commission probe found that the media reports were erroneous in case of Bhind. It said that the election official at the mock drill pressed four buttons on the EVM, each followed by a slip from the VVPAT machine.

The Election Commission report said that the slips from the VVPAT machine came out in this order: Hand Pump (Rashtriya Lok Dal), Lotus (BJP), Hand Pump (Rashtriya Lok Dal and Hand (Congress).

However, the Election Commission agreed that the EVM used at Bhind was not sanitised before it was taken for demonstration. The same EVM had been used at Kanpur in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election.

BHIND WAS REPEATED AT DHOLPUR

Days after the Bhind incident, similar reports emerged from Dholpur in Rajasthan, where Assembly by-poll was being held. Reports suggested that an EVM showed a paper trail that did not reflect the actual voting.

It was reported that irrespective of the button pressed on the EVM, the VVPAT showed vote for the BJP. The Congress protested and agreed with Arvind Kejriwal's claim that the EVMs were rigged by the BJP.

The election officials in Dholpur clarified the matter saying that of the total EVMs that arrived in the Rajasthan district for the April 9 by-poll, 10 were found to be faulty on the account of technical errors in their control units.

The officials said that eight of the faulty machines were detected before being used for voting while the rest two were detected during the voting. They categorically denied that any voter complained of seeing a paper trail contrary to his voting preference.

THE BMC CANDIDATE

While Arvind Kejriwal and Maywati raised doubts over EVM's reliability, an independent candidate in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation election said that he did not receive his own vote because the EVM was rigged.

Shrikant Shirsat, who contested the BMC poll from Saki Naka in western suburbs in Mumbai, claimed that he did not get even his own vote despite casting the vote.

Now, it has emerged that he got 44 votes. The Maharashtra Election Commission has said that Shrikant Shirsat's claim led to a probe by the poll panel.

The investigation by the Election Commission has established that Shirsat's claim was false.

Till now, the Election Commission has proved all the claims of unreliability of EVM wrong.

WHAT IS AN EVM

An EVM is a set of two machines - a control unit that remains with the election official and a balloting unit, on which a voter casts his vote. Both units are connected with cable.

The balloting unit is a box-like device on which the names and the election symbol of all the candidates appear. The voter has to cast his vote by pressing the blue button on the device.

Now, the Election Commission has decided to add a third machine - the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).

The VVPAT will show for seven seconds the paper trail of the vote cast by the voter, who can complaint to the polling officer if his vote preference does not match with the paper slip. The paper slip will get deposited in a separate box.

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