nalapat: The case against EVMs

jul 6th, 2009

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From: Nalapat Saraph

Together we have been alerting the ECI and NIC of the evidence to possible rigging of the entire election from the 6th of May 2009, way before the election process completed. Unfortunately the ECI has not yet taken the evidence seriously. It is good that finally an IAS officer 5 years senior to the CEC, Mr Saigal has woken the ECI out of denial (http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/jul/04/was-election-2009-rigged.htm, http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\07\04\story_4-7-2009_pg7_4 and http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/484802/).

At this time we need election reforms that go beyond the operational and political reforms to ensuring that the "Vote Bank" of India can actually be a "bank". We do hope we can have the leaders of the country cutting across politics rally to support the design and implementation of such an effort. 

The fourth estate now has a critical role to play to protect  the Indian Democracy. As suggested by many people across the world there must be an immediate constitution of an apolitical body of experts to design these election reforms in an open and inclusive process.

We also need to ensure that there are several petitions signed across the country to ban the current EVM with immediate effect. As we discussed the document we put together to indicate the case against the current EVM needs to circulate widely and be edited by anyone on the wiki (http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Case_to_ban_EVM) before it is transformed into a petition to the CEC, the President of India, the Prime Minister of India, the Chief Justice of India and various other national and international agencies responsible to uphold the democratic process in India. 

Furthermore the EC must immediately publicly respond to the questions that have arisen about the Lok Sabha 2009 Elections- particularly those that have arisen out of our research process.

We trust democracy will triumph eventually. Perhaps the brighter side may be that, like with Gandhiji's satyagraha, people will actually begin a satyagrha to make the country a better place.

You are the most important part of this satyagraha. Do please do what you think is right for India.

Best regards,

Prof Madhav Nalapat and Dr Anupam Saraph