25th anniversary of EVM's reintroduction: Irreplaceable role of this technology in Indian electoral landscape

On November 25, 1998, this columnist cast his vote with the press of button at Sarojini Nagar constituency in Delhi Legislative Assembly elections. Later in the day, he rushed to Institute of Driving and Traffic Research, Wazirabad to attend his election duty, the only time ever he had to perform one, being then an employee in a PSU under Delhi Government. This short but intense election duty involved receiving ballot boxes from the polling officers (along with necessary sets of papers) after the conclusion of polling before locking those up inside strong rooms set up at the premises of the institute. Why this dichotomy – EVMs in the morning and ballot boxes in the evening? This was because the EVMs were used in six Assembly Constituencies viz Sarojini Nagar, Gole Market, Minto Road, Kasturba Nagar, Jangpura and Delhi Cantonment, while the rest of Delhi NCT voted the old way with the ballot. In all, people of 16 Assembly Constituencies voted with the EVMs in Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh on that day. The EVMs thus returned to action after 14 long years. They had been illegalized by the Supreme Court in its order on March 5, 1984, while adjudicating an election petition – A C Jose v/s Sivan Pillai & Ors. Until then they had been used in 11 elections (select constituencies only) in Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Bihar in the 1982-1983 period. The first time the EVMs were used on an experimental basis were in Parur Assembly Constituency in Kerala in May, 1982.. The ban was not remotely based on any apprehension or complaint about their functioning. It was on the technical ground that the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 did not contain any explicit provision for the EVMs. It was actually a bad loser’s complaint, that set the clock back. Meanwhile Election Commission of India’s ambitious plans to universalize the EVMs in elections received heavy set back. The necessary statutory amendments viz insertion of the Section 61A in the RP Act, 1951 was finally notified on March 15, 1989. The amendment came late for the EVMs to keep date with elections to Ninth Lok Sabha (November, 1989). However, between November, 1989 and March, 1990 Election Commission of India procured 1,50,000 EVMs at a cost of Rs 73.5 crores appx (this figure given by ECI in the year 2000 varies slightly with figures given by Law, Justice and Company Affairs Ministry). The Dinesh Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms (1990), despite itself being satisfied about the credibility of the machines, recommended a high level technological committee appointed by the Department of Electronics to examine the issue. Promptly a three-member Technical Experts Committee chaired by S Sampath of DRDO (also comprising V Indiresan of IIT, Delhi and Rao C Kasarbada, Director, ERDC, Thiruvananthapuram) was appointed to examine the matter. It gave a positive verdict in April, 1990 and favoured the re-introduction of the EVMs without further loss of time (B C Patra, ECI, Celebrating 40 years of EVM Pride of Indian Elections, P.24). The EVMs failed to keep a date with the Tenth Lok Sabha Elections, 1991. However, while reply to a starred question (No.110) in Rajya Sabha on September 3, 1991 the then MoS, Law, Justice and Company Affairs, Rangarajan Kumaramangalam informed that 1,50,444 machines had been purchased at a cost of Rs 75.25 crores that were being distributed amongst state governments and UTs. It was proposed that EVMs would be used in all bye-elections and countermanded elections after October 1, 1991. There was a plan to universalize the EVMs after five years. However, things did not went according to the plan. Not a single EVM saw action until another seven years. The Government’s lethargy was evident. Even as the statute was amended in 1988/89, the rules were not framed by the Law and Justice Ministry (this was informed by Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy, the then Law, Justice and Company Affairs during a debate in Lok Sabha on March 18, 1992). Almost four years after those 1,50,444 EVMs were supplied, senior officers of M/s Electronics Corporation of India and Bharat Electronics Limited (the manufacturers of the EVMs) came from Hyderabad and Bangalore to Election Commission of India’s headquarters in New Delhi to give a demonstration on October 18, 1995. Though it was the weekly meeting day of the full Commission, unfortunately, both Chief Election Commissioner T N Seshan and Election Commissioner M S Gill were on leave, and only Election Commissioner G V G Krishnamoorthy sat through the demonstration. G V G Krishnamoorthy admitted he was impressed. However, PSU officers told him that the batteries of those EVMs, locked in warehouses for four years, would require replacement. Return of the EVM was not going to be another feather in the cap of iconic T N Seshan. He retired on December 11, 1996 seven months after elections to 11th Lok Sabha without EVMs re-introduced. The Narsimha Rao government (1991-96) appears to have developed cold feet for political reasons. Seshan was succeeded by M S Gill, destined to lead Election Commission of India into 21st century. He apparently proceeded in a systematic manner with re-introduction of the EVMs, as much as with computerization of electoral rolls, and putting the Election Commission of India on the World Wide Web. The year 1997 were spent in building up the case for reintroduction. Two notable meetings were held with political parties in May, 1997 and December, 1997. Meanwhile, a wakeup call to the Government of India and state governments was sounded in a CAG Report for the year ending March 31, 1997. The Comptroller and Auditor General took a strong view of the fact that 1,50,000 EVM machines procured at the cost of Rs 73.5 crore were gathering dust in different warehouses, whose rent and incidental cost had to be borne by the different state governments. The CAG Audit Report for this contained a separate section titled-“Idle Electronic Voting Machine valued Rs 73.5 crore”. The elections for 12th Lok Sabha came prematurely in February, 1998, before the plan for EVM could be finalized. However, it was not a good idea to try out EVMs directly in Lok Sabha elections either. The opportune moment came on November 25, 1998, when four states viz Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and NCT of Delhi went to polls. Election Commission of India while announcing the elections on September 26, 1998, informed that polls would be conducted in 16 Assembly Constituencies (ACs) comprising 2930 polling stations with EVM. These included five ACs in Madhya Pradesh comprising 1149 polling stations, five ACs in Rajasthan comprising 1070 polling stations, and six ACs in NCT of Delhi comprising 711 polling stations. This columnist’s constituency was amongst those. The counting was held on November 28. This was indeed crossing the Rubicon. The onward march of the EVMs could not be stalled again. In February, 1999, Election Commission of India commissioned Centre for Study of Developing Society to conduct a detailed study on EVMs experience during the bye-elections in Delhi and Madhya Pradesh. Of the respondents, 90.6 percent held a favourable view of the EVMs. The CSDS report also indicated that 96.5 percent polling staff had received proper training in the EVM. The EVMs reduced the counting process between 2 and 3 hours instead of normal 6 to 12 hours (ECI, Elections in India: Major Events and New Initiatives 1996-2000, P.279). On June 4, 1999, with guns booming in the heights of Kargil, Goa became the first state where entire legislative assembly elections were conducted with EVMs. Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill inaugurated the first major public centre for demonstration of the EVMs. A massive awareness campaign was undertaken to popularize the EVM functioning. It was also when Election Commission of India developed a set of Comprehensive Guidelines for use of EVM. The 12th Lok Sabha, shortest in history, had been dissolved on April 26, 1999. The elections in five phases, however, were held in September after the Kargil War and monsoon season ended. The EVMs were used in total of 46 Parliamentary Constituencies in Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Delhi NCT, Pondicherry (now Puducherry), Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Orissa (now Odisha) and West Bengal etc in Phase-I, II, III and V. In Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, there were simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and legislative assembly. Two separate machines had to be used, differentiated by an acrylic sheet of different colours behind the ballot papers. The EVMs were universalized in elections to 14th Lok Sabha, 2004. Despite the efficient performance of the EVMs, were subsequently subject to a campaign of calumny to create doubt in public mind regarding vulnerability. This was a bad loser’s complaint on part of some political parties. Their complaint against the EVMs has been dependent on results. They complained only when they lost, and accepted the results without batting an eyelid when they won. In reality, the diversity of results in the EVM era, both pro and anti-incumbency, has been more than in pre-EVM era. The reason is that EVMs don’t vote, they merely record the votes. The best reply to doubting Thomas has been introducing of the VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail), which was first introduced in 2013, and universalized in Seventeenth Lok Sabha elections, 2019. It has increased the credibility of the EVM, without compromising on the secrecy of the ballot. The voter knows where exactly his/her vote has gone. A Supreme Court order dated April 8, 2019, has made it obligatory to tally VVPAT slips in five polling stations per Assembly Constituency with EVM results. No inconsistency in the results has come to light. Today, the electorate size of India has crossed 95 crores. India is a whale compared to lobsters in the democratic world. While the EVMs might be optional in other democracies of the world, they are absolutely irreplaceable in India. A thoroughly indigenous product, India has reasons to be proud about her EVMs. The writer is author of the book “The Microphone Men: How Orators Created a Modern India” (2019) and an independent researcher based in New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.

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