The credibility of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) has been a contentious issue in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, with leaders of 21 Opposition Parties demanding that at least 50 per cent VVPAT slips should we matched in order to verify the authenticity of votes polled and recorded.
Their request has been turned down by the Election Commission of India (EC) claiming that EVMs are tamperproof and cannot be hacked. However, the EC has been evasive over the curious case 20 lakh ‘missing EVMs’ which was revealed by an RTI reply in 2017 and on the basis of which a PIL has been filed in the Bombay High Court.
Per a report in the The Frontline, the reply to an RTI filed by Manoranjan Roy in 2017, is a disparity between the number of EVMs received by the EC and the State Election Commissions and the supply records of two public sector EVM manufacturing companies—Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), Hyderabad, and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), Bengaluru.
‘Missing EVMs’
“According to the ECI’s response on June 21, 2017, to Roy’s RTI query, it received 10,05,662 EVMs from BEL between 1989-90 and 2014-15. The ECI also stated that it received 10,14,644 EVMs from ECIL between 1989-90 and 2016-17. However, BEL said, on January 2, 2018, in response to Roy’s RTI query, that it had supplied 19,69,932 EVMs to the ECI between 1989-90 and 2014-15. The ECIL’s RTI response dated September 16, 2017, stated that it had supplied 19,44,593 EVMs to the ECI. Thus, in a span of around 15 years, the ECI has not received 9,64,270 EVMs that BEL states to have delivered and 9,29,949EVMs that ECIL affirms to have delivered to it,” the report states.
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Thus, 18,94,219 — almost 19 lakh EVMs are unaccounted for. To grasp the scale of this disparity, one must consider that in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the EC is planning to use around 22 lakh ballot units and 16.3 lakh control units — around the same number as the ‘missing’ EVMs.
The report adds, “…in 2003-04, BEL states that it supplied 1,93,475 EVMs, while the ECI asserts that it received only 1,67,850 (a shortfall of 25,625). In 2004-05, the ECI stated that it received 36,395 EVMs, but BEL’s statement said it had supplied only 2,070 pieces. The 2008-09 period has the most glaring shortfall in supply from BEL, a whopping 9,62,000 EVMs. In 2010-1, the shortfall was of 13,490 EVMs, but in 2013-14, the ECI received an excess of 51,713 EVMs against BEL’s supply of 1,39,725. In 2014-15, the first year of the Modi regime, BEL claims it supplied 62,183 EVMs, but the ECI states that it received none. ”
Payments
The discrepancy extends to payments as well. From 2006-07 to 2016-17, the EC’s “actual expenditure” on EVMs is reportedly Rs.536,01,75,485. However, BEL reports having received Rs.652,56,44,000 from EC in that period. Thus the question arises, where did the excess Rs.116.55 crore come from?
Between 2006-07 and 2013-14, EC reports having not received any EVMs from ECIL. However, RTI response from ECIL reportedly shows that between March and October, it got Rs.50.64 crore from the Maharashtra government, through the ECI, as the money for supplying EVMs.
Also read: Maharashtra: 323 EVMs Go Missing For 23 Hours After Polls in Kalyan Constituency
PIL in Bombay HC
Roy has filed a PIL in Bombay High Court, seeking clarity over the issue. However, the EC’s responses make the matter appear fishier.
Besides the above, the petition points gross mismanagement in the transportation of EVMs from one state to another, which is purportedly done “without proper records such as their number, serial number, model number and mode of transportation,” the report said. Also, it appears that EVMs claimed to have been destroyed may still be in the possession of the EC, Roy told Frontline.
The first hearing was listed on September 19, 2018. But the EC was not represented and it was stated in the HC that it had not been possible to give the EC a copy of the petition. Roy’s lawyers then personally provided the EC a copy and the next hearing was scheduled for October 3 but proceedings did not take place due to “paucity of time”, the report adds. Similarly, no procedure took place on the next two hearing — October 29, 2018, and January 17, 2019.
On March 8, 2019, the EC filed a “para wise” reply but did not address the discrepancies between EVMs supplied and received at all. “Instead, the reply was full of generalisations such as “every EVM (B.C./C.U.) and VVPAT has a unique serial number of identification” and that “the EVM and VVPAT are purchased by the Commission as per sanction received from [the] Ministry of Law and Justice”,” reports Frontline.
When Roy’s lawyers pointed out the inadequacies in this reply i on April 5, 2019, the court asked the EC to submit a reply on or before the next hearing on April 23. However, no reply was filed. Then, the court stayed proceedings for two weeks.
The next hearing has been scheduled for July 17, i.e., after the Lok Sabha polls. Roy has filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court seeking its intervention and direction to the Bombay High Court to take up the case expeditiously. The SC is yet to take up the plea.
Roy told Frontline, “All that I am trying to do is get some clarity on these goings-on.”
The EC has denied the Frontline report.