New Delhi, Sep 14 (UNI) Amid the ongoing controversy over the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) malfunction in the Delhi University Students Union election, the Election Commission on Friday said that it did not supply EVMs for the student body polls, held on Thursday.
In a clarification issued here, the Commission said it uses only single post EVMs.
'The Commission uses only single post EVMs. In DUSU polls, it is told that multi-post EVMs (vote can be cast for more than one posts, for instance President/Vice-President/General Secretary), which are technically completely different from ECI's single post EVMs, have been used,' it said.
EC came out with the clarification after the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party alleged that malfunctions took place in DUSU polls, where counting of votes was stopped for some time, when there were allegations of faulty EVMs.
It further said that it was not responsible for conducting local body elections, which were conducted by the State Election Commissions and polls held by various oganisations and institutions.
'The Commission is confident and has firm conviction about the integrity, non-tamperability and credibility of ECI-EVMs. Basis of confidence flows from a wide range of technical and administrative protocols and procedural safeguards that protects our EVMs and VVPATs against any sort of tampering,' it said.
The Commission said earlier, it allowed the Bharat Electronics Limited, Banglore and Electronic Corporation of India Limited, Hyderabad to supply EVMs to State Election Commission and other organisations.
However, "since May 2017, BEL and ECIL were directed to seek Commission's prior approval and supply only EVMs that are different from ECI-EVMs to SECs or to other foreign countries, that too only after the current ordered quantities to ECI are fully supplied", it added.
On Thursday, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer in Delhi clarified that EVMs used in DU polls have not been issued by the Commission and said ‘it seems that the Delhi University has procured these machines privately.
Alleging irregularities in the EVMs used for DUSU polls, Congress leader Ajay Maken on Friday demanded re-polling through ballot papers, to lend maximum transparency in the process.
He alleged that EVM had been tampered in favour of the ABVP and all of a sudden, the machines started malfunctioning in the second session, while NSUI was leading with a good margin in the initial six rounds of counting.
ABVP candidates Ankiv Baisoya and Shakti Singh won the posts of President and Vice-President, while their candidate Jyoti Chaudhary won the post of Joint Secretary. NSUI candidate Akash Chaudhary won the post of Secretary.
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