CCTV cameras installed at a Bhopal strong room where electronic voting machines (EVMs) were stored after the Madhya Pradesh polls did not function for over an hour due to an unprecedented power cut recently, resulting in a blackout that set off allegations of EVM tampering, from opposition parties. There is nothing surprising in the incident ending up in controversies. The incident is a shot in the arms of the Opposition who has been demanding that EVM is deception and voting should be made through the ballot.

The Congress has alleged that the strong room outage on November 28 was an attempt of the BJP to tamper with the machine to retain power in the State where the Assembly election took place on November 28.

Despite the outage, no attempt was made to restore the power. The election commission is also examining the disruption of CCTV functioning. However, malpractices in EVM cannot be suspected just because of the fact that CCTV was not functioning as other security arrangements are there for the strong room. Though the security arrangement is fool-proof, Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamalnath has asked the part workers to keep 24 hr vigil at every centres.

Though the complaints and allegations raised by Opposition parties against voting machines are baseless, it reminds one of the need for necessary changes in country’s election mechanism.

Safely storing voting machines for months, not just weeks, is a big responsibility for all related to the process. Take the case of elections happening in five states. Mizoram elections took place around one and a half month ago. Vote-counting will take place only after the Rajasthan election that will happen next week.

Even during the era of ballot papers, there were no so much gaps between elections in various states. The election commission’s argument is that big gaps are given for making all arrangements including security arrangements.

Even if we buy this argument, people have to wait for about two months to know the result. In this fast-pace world, this long time required for these arrangements is not agreeable.

This is the time when lots of discussions are going on in connection with election reforms and in those parleys the first priority should be given to the righteousness in deciding the elections dates.

This was a country where general elections used to take place on dates with minimum gaps in between. In those days more time was spent for counting of votes but the scenario has changed with the advent of EVMs.

Now just hours are needed to know the results and what takes hours is the voting process. The more the time for polling the more will be issues related to keeping EVMs in safe custody and under tight security. The security of the machines has also become a big liability for the Election Commission ever since political centres started looking at EVMs with suspicion.

The Lok Sabha election is fast-approaching. Last time, the election process took more than a month and this time political parties should come forward to make more logical election schedules. What should be opposed is the unscientific approach while deciding on the election dates.