BRS opposes ECI proposal for remote EVMs

The party will submit its stand to the ECI in writing before January 30 and would raise its objections after discussing within the party.

Hyderabad: The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has strongly opposed the Election Commission of India’s proposal of remote EVMs (RVMs) to enable domestic migrants to vote remotely in the elections being held in their home States or constituencies. The party will submit its stand to the ECI in writing before January 30 and would raise its objections after discussing within the party.

After attending the ECI meeting with the Opposition parties in Delhi on Monday, BRS leader and Telangana State Planning Board vice-chairman B Vinod Kumar stated that the BRS was against usage of RVMs in the elections as India does not need it.

“People have lot of suspicions over operation of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and possibility of their hacking. The ECI had failed to address these concerns. Under these circumstances, how would anyone believe in sanctity of these RVMs,” he asked.

Vinod Kumar also pointed out that several developed nations including the US and the UK had stopped usage of EVMs in elections, considering the anomalies. He reminded that numerous cases of hacking of bank accounts were reported on a regular basis and there was no guarantee that the EVMs or RVMs could not be hacked or tampered with.

“Under these circumstancees, we cannot trust the votes cast in the name of a person living abroad. There is no guarantee that the said voter is casting the vote remotely or those votes are polled through hacking,” he added.