Says party has been shouting from rooftops since March

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday reignited the electronic voting machine (EVM) tampering debate, after some incidents were reported during the first phase of civic elections in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday.

Senior AAP leader Atishi Marlena said the party had been shouting from rooftops since March this year about EVM tampering to favour the BJP.

Viral video

Wednesday’s incident came to the fore after a video of a voter from Meerut, Tasleem Ahmad, went viral on social media. In the video, Mr. Ahmad is seen pressing the button for the BSP but the light next to BJP glows.

He reportedly waited for 15 minutes at the booth, called the senior district officials and the media, and recorded the entire episode on his phone. Similar incidents of tampering were also reported from Kanpur and Agra.

“In all these incidents of tampering, the common thread is that the votes go to the BJP no matter for whom they are cast,” Ms. Marlena said.

She said the first such incident happened in Dhaulpur, Rajasthan, in April this year, where no matter what button was pressed the light aside BJP would come on.

Incidents have also been reported from Bhind in Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sultanpur in UP.

Ms. Marlena said that the AAP local leaders from UP had on several occasions in the last few months requested the election commission to conduct the local elections using ballot paper instead of EVM.

“We had doubts on the authenticity of the elections using EVMs as it could easily be tampered as it has been in the past. The latest cases have only established what we have been saying,” she said.

‘Technical glitches’

She wondered how “technical glitches” always benefited the BJP. The party demanded that these cases not be dealt with in isolation and a comprehensive inquiry be set up. “Why would anyone come out to vote if they know that whomsoever they vote for the votes go to BJP,” she said.

Senior leader Pankaj Gupta said that the AAP had in the past too asked for a white paper of what problems have been found in the EVM tampering cases.