AAP asks EC to allow them to scrutinise EVMs used in Punjab, UP

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday welcomed the Election Commission's decision to allow political parties to examine the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) with their expert teams and asked the poll body to allow them to pick those used during the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

"We hope that you would allow us to pick variants of EVM machines (machines with different software and hardware) used to conduct elections. Most importantly those recently used in the state elections of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, randomly from a strong room instead of the Commission providing us specific machines, so as not to give a chance for concerns that the machines provided are those specifically prepared for the demo/examination," the official statement read.

This development come days after AAP national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal challenged the Election Commission to make the EVMs available to the party for scrutiny.

"It doesn't look like all machines are tampered with. Some are being used in a few areas. I wrote to the EC today. We have the experts to study the software, if you don't have them. Give the EVMs to us. We will make the software public," Kejriwal said.

Besides the AAP, other political parties including the Congress, the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) have also claimed that EVMs had been tampered in the recently concluded assembly elections.