Only NCP accepts EVM ‘hackathon’ dare

New Delhi, May 26

The Election Commission has decided to go ahead with its electronic voting machine (EVM) hacking challenge after the NCP became the only party today to announce its participation in the June 3 dare.

The Congress backed off citing “excuses” and asking the EC to change three rules it had set for participation in the exercise. The EC had yesterday rejected AAP’s demand to tamper with the EVM motherboard saying that would amount to a change in circuit, effectively meaning the challenge would be put to a machine not being used by the EC.

An EC spokesperson said the challenge would feature EVMs the EC will bring from Punjab, UP and Uttarakhand where Assembly polls were held recently.“By 5 pm today, eight parties had responded to the EVM challenge. But only the NCP expressed interest to participate in it. AAP and Congress expressed concerns around existing rules of the challenge and did not show interest to take part in it. BJP, CPI, CPM and RLD wanted to be observers.”— TNS