Election Commission to go ahead with hackathon despite Uttarakhand High Court terming it unconstitutional

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday declared that it will hold its Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) hacking challenge as scheduled, despite the Uttarakhand High Court today termed the move as an 'unconstitutional'. 

Earlier today, the Uttarakhand High Court observed that the Election Commission's EVM hackathon challenge to be held on Saturday is unconstitutional. The court's observation came after a PIL was filed challenging EC's 'EVM hackathon, in which the NCP and the CPI-M will participate.

The court has asked EC to hold full commission meeting and inform the High Court if it plans to go ahead with the EVM challenge.

The challenge will begin from 10 a.m. tomorrow.

The Nationalist Congress Party ( NCP) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) were the only two parties that registered for the hackathon challenge. Both the parties have nominated three persons for the challenge.

The ECI has put up 14 random EVMs for the hacking challenge.

The Election Commission in its letter said that the machine are randomly selected and brought sealed from different polling booth from five state which went on polling recently.

The poll panel issued the challenge after several major opposition parties, including the Bahujan Samaj Party ( BSP), the Aam Aadmi Party ( AAP) alleged that the EVMs used in the recently concluded assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh were tampered with.

The ECI invited seven national and 49 state parties recognised by it for the challenge. It had left out smaller parties and Independents who had contested the recent polls from participating.

Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has also scheduled its own hackathon for the same day on Saturday. Party leaders have invited leaders from all political parties, as well as the EC, to check the voting machine that party MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj had used in the Delhi Assembly to 'prove' EVM tampering.