Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora dismisses tampering allegations, says it’s a national pastime to blame the EVM.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘One Nation, One Poll’ vision is a “desirable goal” for the country, recently appointed Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora has said.
“This debate has been going on for quite some time — a lot of constitutional experts, people in the (Election) Commission, people who have remained secretary generals of the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, have written on this. It is a desirable goal,” Arora said in an interview to ThePrint Friday.
“But having said that, the issue is that the lives of the assemblies of the state come to an end at X time, and that of Lok Sabha at Y time. For that you basically require some amendments in the RP (Representation of People) Act, for which proposals have been sent before and the Law Commission has also given its report,” he said.
“So 2019, there is no possibility of simultaneous elections, but 2024, maybe my successor will have this opportunity,” added Arora.
Arora, a retired IAS officer, took charge as CEC from O.P. Rawat on 2 December.
EVM tampering
Dismissing allegations of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) tampering, Arora said there have been different results in elections held across the country since 2014.
“EVM is ultimately a tool, it is not a voter. So why have we made it a national pastime to blame the EVM?” he said.
Asked about the commission’s view on the clamour among opposition parties to go back to the ballot paper, he said: “The commission’s view is, and I reiterate very politely, but firmly, that the ballot paper is a thing of the past. We are not going back to it.”
While there were only four to five incidents of EVM malfunctioning reported in the recently-concluded assembly elections, he said, a distinction ought to be made between tampering and malfunctioning.
“Tampering is something which is done with malafide intentions and malfunctioning can happen to a new machine,” said Arora.
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Last-mile transportation
Speaking about learnings from the recently-concluded assembly elections, Arora said that the Election Commission needs to tighten the last-mile transportation of EVMs so that stray incidents of the machines being found in unauthorised places such as those reported in Madhya Pradesh are not repeated.
“In these elections, one of our biggest takeaways was that we would need to further tighten our systems for last-mile transportation of the EVMs,” he said.
“Out of 1 lakh 76 thousand polling booths, five incidents happened of malfunctioning or mishandling or lack of supervision, and all those people were punished. But why should even five incidents happen?” said Arora.
“Therefore, we are now working on a protocol of even last mile transportation.”
EC challenges
While the EC has previously asked for powers to de-register political parties, Arora said he would not like the commission to become the “arbiter of political parties” by actively seeking this right.
Arora recognised the challenge of abuse of money power in elections, and said that there is a tendency among candidates to under-report and suppress information with regard to election expenditure. However, he said the issue of introducing an expenditure cap on political parties has so far not come to the commission.
On paid news, the CEC reiterated the commission’s stated stance to make it an offence punishable with imprisonment.
“This is another challenge — sponsored contents being put out in the garb of news for consideration of different kinds,” he said.
“The commission, on its part, has recommended for enacting provision in the law to make ‘paid news’ in elections an electoral offence punishable by imprisonment.”
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