BJP leader Kirit Somaiya during the demonstration on Thursday

Lok Sabha

BJP

voting

Nariman Point office

Omesh Saigal

P S V Prasad

EVM manufacturers

Madhav Bhandari

elections

MP Kirit Somaiya

exercise

After the party’s debacle in theelections, in what seems to be a case of sour grapes, the statecarried out a mockexercise at itson Thursday, to show how Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) can manipulated. The demonstration came 20 daysafter former Delhi chief secretarymade the claim about rigging through EVMs. The party has also demanded the reintroduction of ballot papers for the forthcoming state elections.On Thursday, state BJP leaders summoned, who provides software to, to show how the machines can be manipulated. Prasad said, “The machine that we used to demonstrate on Thursday was designed and developed by our company. The machine is manipulated by inserting the Trojan horse virus in the microchip of the control unit at the time of manufacturing. It can be programmed in such a manner that a certain percentage of polled votes are registered for a candidate by pressing select keys on the ballot unit and control unit in a sequence, before the actual voting,” he said.According to party spokesperson, after manipulation, the machine stops registering votes cast (for a particular party) even when people click its symbol. “We held a demonstration and it actually did not register the correct votes. The circuit and the chip in the EVM, and its control unit which records the votes, can be manipulated,” Bhandari said.“We have demanded all the EVMs in use be checked and loopholes plugged. Alternatively, we have also demanded that the Election Commission consider having a paper ballot along with EVMs in the forthcoming,” he said.Formersaid, “EVMs used in India are obsolete. In several countries these machines have been discarded because they are not foolproof. Twenty six persons voted in the mockand we found that over 15 of the votes got registered for the wrong candidates because of the manipulation,” he said.The Election Commission has however disputed claims made by Saigal and others, and recently said that the machines are foolproof and tamper-proof.