Is Democracy Really Being Tempered ?

The voting day is the biggest festival of democracy. A voter rewards politicians for the work they had done in their term. A voter feels obliged to the constitution for granting him the power to vote. He proudly walks out the pooling booth and eagerly waits for the results. One sudden day, his eyes catch the headline ' Electronic voting Machines are vulnerable to tempering.' The voter now feels like a burnt child who dreads the fire.

Subramaniam Swamy alleged congress of EVM tempering for the first time after 2009 general elections and prophesied 70 seats to congress if EVM's were not tempered. He moved to the apex court of India and introduced the Voter Verified Audit Trail ( VVPAT) which confirms the voter's vote to the candidate and a slip drops down into a box. The Supreme Court ordered the Bharat Electronics Limited to manufacture VVPAT machines. This machine was first used in Nagaland By- elections of 2013 and still lacks to register it's presence as it has been used in only 76 seats out of 690 seats (only 11 %)  in the recently held State Legislative Assembly elections of five states. GVL Narsimha Rao wrote a book " Democracy At Risk" whose some pages were written by LK Advani.

The State Legislative assembly result of five states have again germinated the question of EVM tempering. Mayawati was however like the workman who blames his tools. She in spite of accepting her defeat blamed EVM being tempered; Arvid Kejriwal also raise the same question after losing their hopeful Punjab and urged Election Commission to conduct a free and fair inquiry. Subramaniam Samy has however rejected such allegations stating VVPAT machines as a tool against EVM tempering though they were used on a very small scale in the elections as written above. Alll major political parties except BJP have requested Delhi State Election Commission to conduct MCD elections with Paper Ballot System but the commission has disapproved such claims due to less time. Such dirty politics is not a new sight especially in India.

The right to vote and elect our leader is the core principle of any Constitution and if at all the EVM votes have been tempered, it is a beset on democracy. United States of America has banned EVM in 64% of area, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and many plethora of countries consider EVM useless. The grounds on which we shifted from the Ballot paper in 1999 was booth capturing, cumbersome to calculate the result, paper wasting etc. but if the EVM'S  are dubious, we should shift to the old ballot system.

The EVM has some lacunae like heavy cost as one machine costs 10500 rupees, can only count votes of 64 candidates and the most important it's vulnerability to be tempered.

The judiciary needs to intervene in this debate and the election commission should aim to provide VVPAT machines to all pooling booth till 2019 or else aim to increase security to stop booth capturing and shift to the paper ballot system. For now, we can wait for the Supreme Court ruling and give consolation to our heart that our votes have not been tempered. If tempered, democracy has been tempered.