Known for its ‘theatrics’ as the Oppositions say, the Aam
Aadmi Party has yet again seemingly stirred the hornet’s nest with Saurabh Bhardwaj
bringing an Electronic Voting Machine to the Delhi Assembly to demonstrate how
it can be tampered with. But before we ignore the efforts of a party to expose
something and call it ‘foolish’, let us spare some time thinking about how true
can the revelation be. Especially, at a time when the party is reeling under
internal crises.
The palpable tension among the members of the Aam Aadmi Party
is not hard to understand. A party which is still in its nascent stage has been
receiving one after the other blows. What raises eyebrows is that it is the
same party which was voted with a thumping majority in the Delhi Assembly
elections and the public had ensured the party 67 out of 70 seats in the state
Assembly.
However, things started taking a bad turn ever since the
Punjab elections. After a least expected loss at the elections, it was time for
the party to receive a jolt from its stronghold — Delhi — that apparently
rejected Kejriwal’s ‘alternative politics’.
Coming to the EVM tampering expose by the party on Monday,
there can be two approaches to it. One, to outrightly reject the claims; considering
the EVM presented before the Assembly as nothing more than a toy. However, a
rather sceptical approach would make one wait and watch. Let us not forget,
with the AAP’s demonstration on how EVMs can be tampered with, it has openly
thrown a challenge to the Election Commission of India.
Interestingly, the EC rejected the claims first and then
asked the party to come forward and tamper a ‘real EVM’. What is more baffling,
however, is that the AAP has accepted the same and have asked the EC for a date
in this regard.
What remains now is to see if the EC has the will or even the
wish to give a date to the AAP for a Hackathon challenge or not. It might so be
that the EC had thrown a challenge expecting that the party would not accept
the same.
What is striking here is how the AAP has accepted the
challenge. This is where the doubts grow stronger. This is where questions like
“Have the EVMs really been tampered with?”, “Have the people of the country
been cheated upon with a false promise of democracy?” arise.
Had there been no meat in the claims of the Aam Aadmi Party,
would it have accepted the challenge to tamper yet another EVM, that too one
that will be provided by the EC itself?
However, political pundits also feel that this is an attempt
to shift media attention from its internal crises. Let us not forget that the
party has been reeling under a lot of pressure and even a reservoir of water
bursts from internal pressure.
But if the claims of the party turn out to be true, then it
will be the biggest ‘dhoka’ of the 21st Century. Adult franchise is the right
of any Indian and is the primary tool to uphold democracy. Incidents like
these, if proven right, will not only raise questions about the credibility of
the Central government but more so, on the independent bodies like the Election
Commission of India and if this happens, democracy will be on shaky grounds,
running the risk of collapsing any time.
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