Indore: Commenting over the issue of holding simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha, legislative assemblies and other bodies, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) OP Rawat saind on Monday, that some necessary amendments were made to the Constitution and a sufficient number of electronic voting machines or EVMs were made available.

Along with that, he also stressed the strong need for other logistics to be put in place before such a move could be introduced in the country.

“The government had sought the Election Commission’s (EC) opinion in 2015 on holding the elections to the Lok Sabha, legislative assemblies and other bodies together. We had sent a detailed reply to the government, telling them that this new system would require amendments in the relevant paragraphs of the Constitution and certain sections of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the Representation of the People Act, 1951,” Mr Rawat said, while addressing the Foundation Day function of the Indore Press Club.

He also said that once such requisite amendments were made available and legal framework too was ready for holding simultaneous polls, the Enforcement Directorate would require an adequate number of EVMs and other logistics too.

“If all these requirements are met, then the EC does not have any problem in holding elections simultaneously,” the CEC said.

He stressed the need for EVMs to be provided for 10 lakh polling booths across the country.

“If the elections to the Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabhas and other institutions are to be held together, the requirement of EVMs will obviously go up. As far as the merits and demerits of implementing the new system are concerned, the political parties, lawmakers and citizens will have to brainstorm,” the CEC said.

He made it a point to note, in that several countries, different elections were held together and after the results were released, all the political parties forgot the bitterness and move forward towards the development of their countries.

Mr Rawat dismissed doubts over EVM’s functioning by saying that transparency and credibility of the election process was increased after the introduction of the VVPAT (Vote Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) machines with EVMs.

Few months ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had urged the NDA constituents to begin a debate over the need for “One Nation, One Election”.

After there were reports of election mal practice with EVMs, an inquiry was ordered to find out who was the real culprit. Some even said that mal practice had let to false voting in the previous elections. An inquiry was set up to find out the details of the allegation.  Many from the tech expertise say that the machine could be easily hacked.

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