Election Commission Needs to be More Communicative: Former CEC

SY Quraishi said that it is policy that if any machine breaks down, it has to be replaced within half-an-hour.

In what can be called as one of the biggest poll fiascos of recent times, re-polling took place in 73 booths of Kairana, 43 booths of Maharashtra and one seat of Nagaland on Wednesday , 30 May, after VVPAT machines malfunctioned at all these booths on Monday.

While political mud-slinging continued over alleged “tampering” of the machines, the Election Commission said that some VVPATs had malfunctioned due to “excess heat.”

SY Quraishi, the former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India, while speaking exclusively to The Quint, said that the VVPATS were launched only after thorough trials under various conditions.

“When we were planning to launch the VVPAT, at that time also malfunctioning used to happen. After all there are moving parts in the machines,” he said.

There was a trial in different places like Jaisalmer, Kerala as well as Delhi. The machines have faced extreme heat before. But at that time they were relatively new. I don’t know how many times they have been used or not used after that.

SY Quraishi

While saying that all the bugs were fixed after the first trial, he said that VVPATs were working fine till the elections in Karnataka last month.

Quraishi also said that it is policy that if any machine breaks down, it has to be replaced within half-an-hour.

"I think the EC should have had adequate back up, the point that it took so much time for them to be replaced…I don’t think they were expecting them to break down or they surely would have had back up,” he said.

Calling political mudslinging on the Election Commission “unfortunate” whenever elections are around, Quraishi also asserted that the EC needs to be more “communicative” whenever it faces “baseless allegations.”

The EC needs to communicate more with the people. Whenever such issues take place, the EC should come out, give numbers. They should come out. We should wait for them to come out with a detailed report before commenting on them. The reports are made in consultation with the expert.

SY Quraishi