Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar speaks during a press conference for the announcement of the schedule of elections to the Legislative Assemblies of Jharkhand and Maharashtra, in New Delhi.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Tuesday said the poll body will give detailed responses to complaints of irregularities in Electronic Voting Machines by 20 Congress candidates soon, as he rejected the allegations of the party about the machines with varying battery strength giving out different results.
Congress had submitted complaints by 20 candidates claiming that some EVMs used for counting were operating at 99 per cent battery capacity while others were operating at 60-70 per cent battery capacity and it gave varied results.
Kumar said allegations of hacking were made earlier but "this (allegation on battery strength) has come up for the first time. Now we are thinking what will come next, we cannot fathom. But certainly something new will come up".
Rejecting the contentions, he said EVMs are commissioned and election symbols of candidates are loaded around six days ahead of the polling day and a new battery is installed in the presence of candidates or their agents. Not just the machine, even batteries will have signatures of candidates or their authorised agents.
"Even we were not aware (of this rule) as it was framed long back. Now it is helping us," he said to questions on the allegations.
Referring to claims that pagers can be used to blow up people as one saw in Lebanon and why cannot EVMs be hacked, Kumar said pagers are connected to a network and EVMs are not.
"We will give detailed responses to each of the complaints and put our response in the public domain. We will also come out with a detailed 'FAQ' to satisfy all stakeholders," he said.
He said no complaints were raised till the counting of votes and candidates did not have any doubts about the sealing of EVMs and its transportation or storage.