New Delhi: The Election Commission got a big thumbs up from Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his monthly radio show in the midst of a heated debate over the sanctity of EVMs and the impartiality of the poll panel.
In his 'Mann ki Baat' address on Sunday, Modi hailed the role of the Election Commission for its "meticulous organising abilities" in holding polls.
Highlighted how polling personnel fan out to remotest corners to enable voters exercise their franchise, Modi said, "These facts are bound to instil a sense of pride, of the commitment of the Election Commission. Caring for that lone voter, for ensuring that he or she enjoys full opportunity to exercise the right to vote ... this is the beauty of our democracy."
He appreciated the Election Commission for "relentlessly" striving to ensure the strengthening of democracy.
"I hold in high esteem, the Election Commissions of all states, security personnel and other staff members who contribute in ensuring strict adherence to free and fair polling," he said.
The opposition chorus to replace Electronic Voting Machines with ballot papers has grown louder in the run-up to Lok Sabha elections after a self-proclaimed cyber expert claimed the machines can be hacked and the 2014 Lok Sabha elections were rigged.
Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, however, made it clear this week that the poll panel will not be "intimidated or bullied" into giving up the machines and going back to the era of ballot boxes. He had also lamented that EVMs are being used as a "football" and some sections are doing a "motivated slugfest" over their use.
Defending EVMs, the CEC had said there was one result in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and a totally different result four months later in the Delhi state elections. "Since then, we have had elections in Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, and now Chattisgarh, MP, Telangana, Rajasthan... The results have been completely different in different times... my simple question is that if the result is X, the EVM is right and the result turns out to be Y, the EVM is faulted," he said.
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