Gaurav Gogoi asks EC to release data on faulty EVMs in LS polls

New Delhi: Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi on Monday asked the Election Commission to put out data on how many EVMs were found faulty throughout the Lok Sabha polls.

Gogoi, who won the just concluded Lok Sabha elections from Assam’s Jorhat seat by defeating his nearest BJP rival by a margin of over 1.44 lakh votes, said he can confidently say that these machines have shown inaccurate results.

Gogoi’s statement came a day after a fresh political row erupted over EVM tampering claims with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other Opposition leaders citing a media report that alleged that a relative of the Shiv Sena candidate in Mumbai North West Lok Sabha constituency was found using a mobile phone “connected” to an electronic voting machine during the counting of votes on June 4. In a post on ‘X’, Gogoi said before treating the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) as infallible, the Election Commission of India should put out data on how many EVMs were found faulty throughout the elections. He said the ECI should answer how many machines showed the wrong time, date, votes registered during the general elections and how many EVMs had their components replaced - counting unit, ballot unit and how many EVMs were found faulty during the mock poll.

“Having contested the elections, I can confidently say that these machines have shown inaccurate results. I hope the Election Commission puts out the above data because the public have the right to know,” he said. Returning officer of the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha constituency, Vandana Suryavanshi, has dismissed the report in Mid-Day newspaper as “false news” and said that a defamation notice has been issued to the publication. She asserted the EVM is a standalone

system, not programmable and has no wireless communication capabilities.