Democracies do not discourage the questioning of any given,and theres no reason queries on whether electronic voting machines may be mani-pulated should not be answered by those in authority. Yet,recent instances of political parties flinging doubts on the reliability of EVMs have veered to churlishness and,more disturbingly,irresponsibility.
Soon after the 2009 general elections,senior BJP leaders created a din about the security of EVMs,and even recommended a return to ballot papers. Other parties,all less than pleased about the results,joined in the chorus. The situation became rather ludicrous when
an anti-EVM campaigner surfaced with a stolen machine in an attempt to prove that it could be tampered with,and was subsequently arrested. Election officials,to their credit,engaged with the criticism,and pointed out that the case has not been made against the machines,that they are standalone gadgets with a one-time programmable chip and that theres no operating system that can be hacked into.
Indeed,at that time,the Congress derided the campaign as the shenanigans of sore losers,and the accusation carried some weight. Grace in accepting election verdicts has been a much praised feature of our democracy and all political parties have desisted from levelling baseless allegations. This is why its so dangerous that the Congress is now clinging to the excuse that its dismal performance in local elections in Gujarat is on account of tampered EVMs. The party has submitted a memorandum to the state election commission,and its spokesperson has endorsed the move. This is a highly dangerous ploy by the party,as it takes the EVM alibi round the political table as a boilerplate response to an electoral loss. Were this to go unchallenged by the party bosses,the consequences for our democracy could be disastrous.