'Claims of increase in votes in last hour are fake'

{INTERVIEW} SCHOCKALINGAM, MAHA CHIEF ELECTORAL OFFICER

- Yogesh Naik

Amid allegations of EVMs being tampered with in the recently concluded state elections, the Maharashtra chief electoral officer S Chockalingam on Saturday shot down claims that the machines can be manipulated at all. In an interview with HT, he also dismissed allegations of candidates who claimed to have got zero votes in their area blaming malfunctioning EVMS for the same.

The Opposition has raised doubts on the functioning of EVMs, alleging they can be remotely controlled. Can EVMs be tampered?

It has been repeatedly proven that EVMS cannot be tampered. The Supreme Court has upheld the use of the EVMs. The machine consists of a control unit, a ballot unit and a VVPAT unit. The control unit has a burnt-in chip whose programming cannot be modified... It is technically foolproof, with no possibility of a connection with WiFi or Bluetooth... The administrative side ensures transparency of the process-in fact, after candidates are finalised, they are invited to inspect.