NCP only party to participate in EC's EVM challenge

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission 's EVM challenge will be held on June 3 but with just two parties - CPM and NCP led by Sharad Pawar - volunteering to try and demonstrate that EC's EVMs can be tampered.While BJP, CPI, and Rashtriya Lok Dal have evinced interest in observing the EVM challenge, AAP and Congress raised certain issues in letters sent to the EC on Friday afternoon. Both parties, however, steered clear of expressing any interest in being part of the challenge. RJD also wrote to EC volunteering to participate but as the application was received at 5.39 pm on Friday, it was held as "not entertainable" due to late submission.While AAP, which was at forefront of the demand for conducting an EVM 'hackathon', wrote to the EC reiterating its demand to be allowed to change or tinker with the motherboard, Congress too, is believed to have sought a relaxation in conditions for the proposed challenge.In a letter to the Election Commission, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala said the challengers should be allowed access to all the components of an Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), including the motherboard."The extensive terms and conditions that this challenge imposes prevent challengers to conduct a thorough test on the EVMs. We urge you to reconsider relaxing the three rules, as their inclusion undermines the very credibility of this initiative," said Surjewala.An EC spokesperson on Friday evening said a total nine parties had responded to its EVM challenge. While NCP and CPM have nominated three representatives each to take part in the challenge, AAP and Congress stuck to only questioning the framework. Three other parties - CPI, BJP and RLD - told EC they were keen to observe but not participate in the EVM challenge, while All India NR Congress, a recognised state party in Puducherry, expressly declined to be part of the challenge. RJD applied for participation but only after the deadline.NCP had alleged an EVM fraud during the local polls in Maharashtra earlier this year. It particularly raised the alleged 'zero votes' secured by an independent candidate, Shrikant Shirsat, in Mumbai municipal corporation polls. Shirsat had claimed that votes cast in his favour by him as well as his family and neighbours were not registered. However, the EC, based on an investigation by the Maharashtra SEC, found the allegations to be false, with the candidate having secured a total 44 votes from the Ward no 164.According to the EC spokesperson, NCP sent its letter evincing interest in the EVM challenge between 2 pm and 3 pm on Friday, hours before the deadline was to expire. It nominated three persons for the challenge - Vandana Hemant Chavan, Gaurav Jayprakash Jachak and Yasin Hussain Shaikh.While CPM did not express interest in participation in its covering letter, it too nominated three persons for the challenge as part of the annexures.The challenge will be conducted between 10 am and 2 pm on June 3. NCP and CPM will simultaneously attempt tampering of EVMs at separate counters. NCP has not chosen the four EVMs, as allowed under the framework, for demonstrating the tampering. The choice of EVMs has been left to the EC.EC will bring the EVMs from UP, Uttarakhand and Punjab, where assembly elections were held recently, for the challenge.The EC had on Thursday turned down AAP’s demand for allowing change or tampering of EVM motherboard during the EVM dare, saying that changing the motherboard or internal circuitry of the machine was like changing the whole device itself.It also rejected the Trinamool Congress's demand for more time to evince interest in the challenge, and asked it to do so within the original deadline.