Pune politician, human rights lawyer send legal notices to foreign companies in alleged 2019 election fraud using EVM
Pune, July 25, 2019 : Against the electoral malpractices and suspected election fraud by use of Electronic Voting Machines, Ex-Corporator of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation Mr. Maruti Sahebrao Bhapkar has issued legal notices through Adv. Asim Sarode to Microchip Technology Inc. based in Arizona, USA and Panasonic Electronic based in Osaka, Japan for alleged involvement in white collar crime related to 2019 General Election by using EVM machines. Mr. Bhapkar has also issued notices to the Central Election Commissioner for breach of Constitutional mandate mentioned in Article 324 of the Indian Constitution.
Mr. Maruti Bhapkar informed that these foreign companies who are engaged in manufacturing microchip and leading provider of micro controller, analog FPGA, connectivity and power management semiconductor (computer chip) are suspects in election fraud committed through EVM machines. He said on the basis of reasonable doubts which can be seen in the chain of circumstances that there are various issues of corruption involved in the use of EVM machines in the recent elections.
Adv. Asim Sarode said that Art. 324 of the Constitution of India mandate Election Commission to conduct elections under their superintendence, directions and control and under such constitutional provision, there is no scope for outsourcing the work of conducting the elections to any individual third party (company) alienating any such constitutional mandatory Government responsibility to any Non-Governmental Company is illegal activity. He also said that German Constitutional Court and Court in Australia have clearly mentioned that, “elections are required to be public in nature and all essential steps of elections are subject to the possibility of public scrutiny unless other constitutional interest justifies an exception… The use of voting machines which electronically record the voters’ votes and electronically ascertain the election result only meets the constitutional requirements if the essential steps of the voting and of the ascertainment of the result can be examined reliably and without any specialist knowledge of the subject…. The very wide-teaching effects of possible errors of the voting machines or of deliberate electoral fraud make special precautions necessary in order to safeguard the principle of the public nature of elections.”
Adv. Sarode further pointed out that need for transparency for electoral process without technical knowledge effectively ended Germany’s recent use of electronic voting and considering the free and fair election in absence of transparency, verifiability and maintain secrecy elections through EVM machines in India is definitely having various illegalities involved.
Mr. Maruti Bhapkar said that he has sent notices to save democracy and he is trying to get national, international support so that he can even approach in Courts in US or Japan to check the possibilities of initiating legal proceedings against the wrongdoer including the Election Commission of India. Adv. Asim Sarode said use of EVM machines in the election process is a white collar crime and it is not less than organized crime syndicate behind this 2019 General Election. Mr. Maruti Bhapkar has demanded copies of agreement/contract entered into by these foreign companies with the Election Commission of India to reach to clarity. He said he will be the happiest person to withdraw his allegations if these foreign companies involved in conducting elections will exhibit through documents that they are not guilty of any suspicious things.
