Blatant Lies of Navin Chawla to defend EVM’s

The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Mr. Navin Chawla has been on a falsehood  binge  about the infallibility of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). He obviously is “protesting too much” to hide the truth.

His repeated assertion wherever he goes in the country, that “no one had been able to prove that the EVMs could be tampered with as alleged by some quarters” is a blatant lie because on September 3rd when accompanied by two brilliant software engineers from Andhra Pradesh, Dr. V.V. Rao and Dr. Hariprasad, I had gone to the Election Commission on the CEC’s invitation to prove just that.  When Dr. Hariprasad began to demonstrate the riggability of the EVMs, the Electronic Commission of India ’s (ECIL)  representative protested that the dissembling of the EVM by the expert was a “violation of their Intellectual Property Rights and Patent Rights”!

The demonstration thus was halted half-way on the advice of retired Professor P.V. Indiresan, whose knowledge of electronics is outdated and does not extend beyond soldering of two electric wires.  The EC officials promised to re-convene the meeting
after a fresh authorization from Mr. Navin Chawla to permit our dissembling the EVM  placed before us.

No new meeting for the demonstration has since been scheduled by the EC. In the meantime, the ECIL has sent Dr. Hariprasad a written legal notice for damages for “defaming the EVMs”,a most ridiculous if not hilarious development.

 

Therefore, convinced that the CEC has something to hide, I filed a PIL in the Delhi High Court.  On September 23rd after hearing both sides, myself and the EC Counsel, Chief
Justice A.P. Shah ordered the EC to file an affidavit within four weeks stating their views on EVMs and on my suggestions for safe electronic voting.  When the matter was listed again after four weeks, the EC asked for four more weeks to file their affidavit.  Now the next hearing is fixed for November 25th.  

Hence, Mr. Navin Chawla should stop spreading canards about the invincibility of the EVMs.  The EVMs are under a cloud the world over today,  and hence voter confidence has to be restored by a constructive attitude and not by bravado, bluff and bluster of the CEC.  

Given Mr. Chawla’s dubious record of service during the State of Emergency in the country (1975-77), he should bend backwards to establish his honesty of purpose and commitment to democracy and voting integrity.

 
( SUBRAMANIAN  SWAMY )

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