On the ground: AAP’s demonstration of EVM rigging fails to convince Delhi’s residents

In 2015, when the Aam Aadmi Party was doing its best to convince the residents of Delhi to vote for it in the Assembly elections that were held in February, one of the fledgling party’s biggest supporters in the city were auto-rickshaw drivers.

These drivers vigorously campaigned for AAP across Delhi localities, distributing pamphlets, and pasting posters, their auto-rickshaws blaring the party’s Paanch Saal Kejriwal jingle composed for the campaign.

Among them was auto-rickshaw driver Manoj Kumar Chaudhary, 40. “We were all alloted constituencies for the campaign,” said Chaudhary. “I was given charge of Chhatarpur [in South West Delhi].”

However, two years later, disillusionment set in. Ahead of the municipal elections in Delhi earlier this year, Chaudhary campaigned for the Bharatiya Janata Party instead.

Things have also changed for AAP since. The party that won the Delhi Assembly elections with a historic 67 seats out of 70, bagging 54.3% of the votes, could secure only 26.2% of the total votes in the 2017 municipal polls. This came weeks after the party’s poor performance in the Punjab and Goa elections held earlier this year, and resulted in its leader Arvind Kejriwal alleging that Electronic Voting Machines had been rigged in favour of the Congress in Punjab and the BJP in Delhi.

On Tuesday, in the Delhi Assembly, AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj conducted a live demonstration that attempted to show how an EVM could be effortlessly rigged. The demonstration used a prototype of an Electronic Voting Machine, which prompted the Election Commission to respond saying that hacking a prototype and hacking an EVM was not the same thing.

To get a sense of the political impact of AAP’s allegations and demonstration that EVMs could be tampered with, this reporter reached out to people from groups that are believed to be behind AAP’s victory in 2015. These people included auto-rickshaw drivers, sanitation workers, students, street vendors, factory workers and businessmen.

The exercise elicited mixed reactions. While some of those interviewed were open to the possibility that EVMs could be tampered with, keeping aside their differences with the party, if any, they were not convinced by the live demonstration. Others said that the demonstration was a political move aimed at diverting public attention from the party’s poor showing in Punjab, Goa and the Delhi municipal polls, as well as from bigger issues such as allegations of corruption, which the party’s top leadership is confronted with at the moment.

‘EVM rigging possible’

“Any kind of tampering with an electronic device is possible and that can be verified through a thorough examination by a competent authority,” said Chaudhary. “But the way the Aam Aadmi Party is trying to politicise the matter is wrong. After all they too got 67 out of 70 seats through elections conducted via EVMs. Now, when they have lost, they are blaming it on the machines. The mere possibility of something does not necessarily mean that it has happened.”

Another auto-rickshaw driver, Vijay Prakash Upadhyay, who also helped AAP with its election campaign in 2015, said that the Delhi Assembly demonstration was unconvincing. “I did watch the demo but I also heard what the Election Commission later said about it,” said Upadhyay. “The problem is that the party is trying to divert attention from real issues, including basic civic amenities, housing and corruption, which it has failed to fulfill.”

Diversionary tactic

Rajendra Mewati, an unpaid sanitation worker caught in a tussle between the AAP-led Delhi government and the BJP-ruled municipal corporations, acknowledged that it was possible to tamper with EVMs. “If the most secret details from even government accounts can be hacked, servers can be hacked, then why not Electronic Voting Machines?” he asked.

Mewati, who is also president of the Delhi Pradesh Safai Mazdoor Union, said that he first started having doubts about EVMs when the Aam Aadmi Party won the 2015 elections in Delhi by a landslide. He said those doubts resurfaced when the Bharatiya Janata Party won seats from Muslim-dominated areas in Uttar Pradesh in the Assembly elections held in that state earlier this year.

He subscribed to the theory that the hullabaloo over EVM tampering was a diversionary tactic. “Doing the EVM demo at such juncture seems like an attempt to divert the attention from the friction with Kapil Mishra,” he said.

A few days ago, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sacked legislator Kapil Mishra from the Delhi cabinet on grounds of alleged financial irregularities in the Delhi Jal Board, a portfolio that Mishra held. A day after being sacked, Mishra alleged that he had seen Kejriwal accept a Rs 2-crore bribe, and also lodged complaints with the Anti-Corruption Branch and Central Bureau of Investigation.

Demonstration not convincing

Narvinder Thakran, a post-graduate student at the University of Delhi, was also left cold by the hacking demonstration. “The Aam Aadmi Party is not being able to accept defeat and hence it is resorting to the EVM controversy,” he said. “Even though I am open to the possibility of EVM tampering, I am not even 1% convinced with the demo. What AAP should probably do right now is sit down and introspect.”

Sanjay Bhargava, the owner of a garment showroom and general secretary of Chandni Chowk Sarv Vyapar Mandal, said that the EVM rigging controversy was a hoax. “Tampering with the EVM is not possible,” he said. “I fail to understand why AAP is challenging a constitutional authority [the Election Commission]. The live demo was a fraud. How can they [AAP] even compare a customised prototype with an original electronic voting machine. They are just trying to divert attention.”

In 2015, AAP won with significant margins from three constituencies – Hari Nagar, Okhla and Wazirpur – which contain three of the city’s biggest industrial areas. These areas are inhabited by a large number of factory workers, who live in its slums. Most factory workers are believed to have supported AAP due to its promises of job security and ensuring that workers would be paid the minimum wage.

Brijmohan Tiwari, a 36-year-old factory worker in West Delhi’s Mayapuri Industrial Area, which is part of Hari Nagar constituency, was not convinced by the EVM rigging demonstration. “If AAP is challenging EVMs now, they must know that they are challenging their position too,” said Tiwari, who lost his job following demonetisation. “They had also won 67 seats in 2015.”

He added: “AAP should participate in the all-party meet [scheduled for May 12] being organised by the Election Commission and, if given a chance, accept the challenge to do it again with a real EVM.”

‘Some substance to allegations’

Street vendors were another major segment that supported AAP ahead of the 2015 elections. According to Naseeruddin Siddiqui, 63, who lives in North East Delhi’s Shahdara, where he sells bags for a living, the controversy over EVM rigging is more about the quality of a democracy than one’s opinion about a political party. He said that he saw a video of the live demonstration but refused to comment on it, saying that he was no expert in the subject.

Siddiqui said that he became aware of the possibility of EVM rigging when he heard Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati speaking out against it on the day of the Uttar Pradesh election results. He said Kejriwal’s claims to that effect also added to his doubts. “Voters should not be discouraged from voting,” said Siddiqui. “If there is a problem with EVMs, it should come to light and eventually corrected. It should not be ignored. There can be some substance behind the allegations.”