With many parties raising doubts about the reliability of electronic voting machines, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to convene an all-party meeting to clear all doubts regarding the efficacy of EVMs.

While the EC has maintained that EVMs are tamper-proof — last month it had even called all those who had raised objections about the machines to prove their claim — parties like the AIADMK, Samajwadi Party and PMK continue to insist that the machines can be tampered with.

Leaders of the SP, AIADMK and PMK later approached the commission seeking a chance to demonstrate how the machines could be tampered with. In the PMK’s case, it was the Madras High Court that had directed it to prove its charge before the EC while disposing of a petition filed by it last month.

On Tuesday, Karat in a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla referred to questions being raised about the reliability of the EVMs and pointed out that it was important that all such doubts were removed, “so that people’s faith in the democratic system is not affected”.

Amongst the concerns he listed are the possibility of tampering with the programme chip embedded in the machines and lack of any verifiable record of the vote cast by a voter. He also pointed out that some countries with the requisite technological know-how had stopped the use of the EVMs or prescribed conditions for their use.

“The Election Commission should take steps to clear all the doubts and allay the apprehensions. We request you to convene an all-party meeting along with technical experts to discuss in depth the issue of use of the EVMs in the electoral process,” Karat said.

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