Congress demands Army security, jammers at strong rooms

Hyderabad: The Congress party has demanded that the security of strong rooms where EVMs will be kept till counting should be assigned to either Indian Army or the CRPF.

Telangna Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy, in a media statement on Thursday, asked the Election Commission of India to focus on the need for special security measures to be taken at all strong rooms across Telangana State where the EVMs will be kept till the counting day. "Since the votes will be counted on May 23, 2019, i.e., after 42 days, special measures are needed to ensure that EVMs remain safe, untouched and inaccessible from all kinds of tampering or manipulation," he said.

Therefore, Gudur Narayana Reddy demanded that the responsibility of security of strong rooms should be assigned to Indian Army or CRPF. He said the access to local police should be prohibited to all the strong rooms and their role must be confined to providing basic logistic support. He said recognised political parties must be permitted to deploy their cadre at strong rooms for vigilance. He demanded that high-security network jammers be installed around all strong rooms to protect possible wireless hacking of EVMs. "CCTV footage of all booths of polling day and also the footage to be recorded at strong rooms till counting day must be preserved. All spare EVMs, which were not used in polling, should be either sent to other States for next phases of polling or sealed," he demanded.

The Congress leader reminded that serious allegations of EVM tampering/manipulation were levelled during the conduct of Telangana Legislative Assembly elections held in December 2018. Therefore, he said enough measures should be taken that people's faith in a free and fair elections is restored.

Gudur Narayana Reddy also asked the Congress cadre to be vigilant till the counting day. He asked them to alert the TPCC leadership if they find anything suspicious in their constituencies.