Democracy In Danger

The worst thing which can happen in a democratic country – more than all the other damages continuously being caused by our eccentric politicians put together – is the denial of free and fair elections, and cheating in the electoral process. Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), largely hyped to ensure free and fair elections, are under the scanner now.

I recollect making two observations in my earlier blogs. In the first, regarding the election results, I have mentioned that the good results might have even surprised many in congress party. And the second observation questions the fair election of our union home minister. Both these observations gain significance by the news of tampering in EVMs.

Of course, EVM tampering was continuously on news after the elections. There is now a PIL filed in one of the High Courts. The biasing media did not highlight this news enough, and as a result, such news was always confined to back pages, among less interesting news. Had the election results been in favour of BJP, I am sure that the media must have raised a lot of hue and cry, instead of the mysterious silence they maintain now.

Our Honorable Chief Election Commissioner cum senior congress leader, Mr N Chawla, -instead of taking necessary measures to ensure a proper solution- is simply making statements that EVMs are tamper proof. Government, not surprisingly though, did not even bother to clarify about this serious issue. Opposition parties are creating a lot of noises, rightly so, and asking to revert back to old methods. The old but another failed system of ballot paper method, will not only increase the expenditure in multiples of hundreds of crores, but also render these EVMs useless.

Recently, there was a demonstration in Nagpur, by a computer software firm, to show how the EVMs can be tampered. The demonstration was witnessed by large number of people, and leaders of political parties. This surely was not the first demo of its kind, and certainly not going to be the last one. When will this fall into the deaf ears of Govt authorities and Mr CEC? God only knows!