BJP shrugs of Digvijaya Singh’s EVM tirade

Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], April 16 : Taking a dig at Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh over his 'EVM tampering' remark, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday said the former's views should not be taken seriously.

"His views should not be taken seriously. He is the same person who said RSS is behind Mumbai attacks," BJP leader Sudhanshu Trivedi told ANI. Earlier today, Digvijaya alleged the Election Commission (EC) is limiting objections to the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to hacking.

"The Election Commission is limiting objections to the EVMs to hacking. It must allow the examination of possibility of software tampering at a stage of writing it from server," Singh tweeted.

He added there is a strong possibility of tampering coding at the stage of writing software i.e. the EVMs can be pre-tampered. "There is no need for hacking. The Election Commission must devise a way of supervision by political parties of coding software to EVM like it does at subsequent stages," Singh asserted.

Giving a fresh jolt to the controversy surrounding the alleged tampering of the EVMs, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said that he had heard the voters pressed on the symbol of the Samajwadi Party, but the votes went into the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) basket.

Expressing his doubts on the EVMs, Akhilesh demanded that polls must be conducted on ballot papers. "It was being said that symbol of the Samajwadi Party SP was pressed but votes went to the BJP. We have complained about the issue to the Election Commission because after all, it is a machine and can give faulty results," Akhilesh said while addressing a press conference in Lucknow.

Earlier on Friday, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati said that she was ready to join hands with other political parties to take on the BJP on the issue of EVM tampering in the recent assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

"The B SP now has no reservations in taking the help of anti-BJP parties in its fight against EVM tampering and the BJP as it is the democracy which comes first...we have to keep democracy alive," she said while addressing an Ambedkar anniversary function of the party in Lucknow.

Mayawati had raised the issue of EVM tampering after the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The other political parties have also raised questions about the same. Irked by the charges, the Election Commission (EC) has challenged the skeptics to prove that EVMs can be tampered with.

Source: ANI