SHILLONG: With cases of EVM tampering surfacing, especially in Uttar Pradesh during the local body elections, UDP leader Bindo Lanong said on Friday that the Election Commission should opt for ballot papers in small states like Meghalaya to instill faith in voters.
Lanong said tampering and hacking of EVMs is a matter of concern and continues to disturb voters.
According to the senior politician, even the new mechanism, Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), cannot be trusted as this is man-made and can be tampered or hacked.
He also reminded that after the 2013 Meghalaya Assembly polls, there were allegations of tampering of EVMs and a delegation of MPs came to Shillong to hold a meeting with political parties from the North East to discuss the matter.
In the meeting, the parties unanimously supported reintroduction of paper ballots, Lanong said.
“Though the delegation of MPs was supposed to follow up the matter, the members never turned up giving the impression that they came to Meghalaya only for holidaying,” he added. The UDP leader also said recently a national BJP leader had predicted that there would be surprises in Meghalaya and other poll-bound states in the North East.
“In fair polls, BJP will not get beyond 3 to 4 seats, but if the EVMs are pre-fixed, this will lead to a totally different result,” he said.
The UDP leader said even Chief Minister Mukul Sangma had doubted the use of EVMs after the by-polls to the Tura Lok Sabha seat which saw the defeat of his wife Dikkanchi Shira.
Lanong also said EC should not impose the use of EVMs as he wanted to know what the EC has done to address the findings of the cases related to EVM tampering.
