EC dares parties to tamper with voting machines

May 13, 2017

Bengaluru, May 13: The Election Commission (EC) on Friday announced that it would deploy Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) devices with all the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in all future polls.

Also, the commission will hold a “challenge” to give all political parties a chance to prove their claim that the EVMs used in the recently concluded Assembly elections were tampered with or that the EVMs can be tampered with even under the laid down technical and administrative safeguards, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi said.

The dates for the “challenge” will be announced soon. The EC also decided that it would ensure the mandatory counting of a certain percentage of VVPAT paper slips in addition to the results displayed electronically on the EVMs.

The commission announced the decisions at a meeting held with seven national and 35 of the 49 state recognised political parties in New Delhi on Friday – amid a controversy over the credibility of the EVMs.

The VVPAT system generates paper slips for all the votes cast on the EVMs linked to them. The EC at present does not count the paper slips in all the cases.

Zaidi and the two Election Commissioners, O P Rawat and A K Joti, held the meeting with political parties in view of the doubts expressed by several of them over the credibility of the EVMs.

“You should be convinced that EC has no favourites...We maintain equidistance from all parties and groups. It is our constitutional and moral duty to stand dead centre of the circle drawn around us by 56 political parties,” Zaidi earlier said in his opening remarks at the meeting.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal had earlier accused Joti and Rawat of being close to the ruling BJP in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. Sixteen political parties, including the Congress, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the AAP, had on April 10 urged the EC to use ballot papers instead of EVMs in future elections. On April 12, several political parties called on President Pranab Mukherjee to draw his attention.

Saurav Bhardwaj, an AAP MLA, staged a demonstration in the Delhi Assembly to buttress the party’s claim that the EVMs could be tampered with.

“Sad that EC has backed out of hackathon,” Kejriwal tweeted on Friday, indicating that his party was not satisfied with the “challenge” the commission agreed to hold.

At present, VVPATs are deployed in select polling booths. The government last month cleared the commission’s proposal to procure 16.15 lakh VVPAT devices worth Rs 3,173.47 crore by September 2018.

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Rajdhani Express Derails, 7 elephants killed after collision in Assam

News Network

December 20,2025

At least seven elephants were killed and one calf injured after a herd collided with the Sairang-New Delhi Rajdhani Express in Assam's Hojai on Saturday morning, leading to disruption of rail services.

The Sairang-New Delhi Rajdhani Express struck a herd of elephants, resulting in the derailment of the locomotive and five coaches. No passenger casualties or injuries were reported, officials said.

The New Delhi-bound train met with the accident around 2.17 am, PTI reported. The Sairang-New Delhi Rajdhani Express connects Mizoram's Sairang (near Aizawl) to Anand Vihar Terminal (Delhi).

Railway has issued helpline numbers at the Guwahati Railway Station:-

•   0361-2731621
•   0361-2731622
•   0361-2731623

The accident site is located about 126 km from Guwahati. Following the incident, accident relief trains and railway officials rushed to the spot to initiate rescue operations.

Train Services Disrupted

Sources said that due to the derailment and elephant body parts scattered on the tracks, train services to Upper Assam and other parts of the Northeast were affected.

Passengers from the affected coaches were temporarily accommodated in vacant berths available in other coaches of the train. Once the train reaches Guwahati, additional coaches will be attached to accommodate all passengers, after which the train will resume its onward journey.

The incident occurred at a location that is not a designated elephant corridor. The loco pilot, upon spotting the herd on the tracks, applied emergency brakes. Despite this, the elephants dashed into the train, leading to the collision and derailment.

Last month, an elephant was killed after being hit by a train in Dhupguri in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district. The incident took place on November 30.

The adult elephant was killed on the spot, and a calf was discovered lying injured beside the tracks.

Over 70 Elephants Killed In Train Collisions Over Last 5 Years

At least 79 elephants have died in train collisions across the country in the last five years, the Environment Ministry had informed Parliament in August.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh had said the figure is based on reports from state governments and Union Territory administrations for the period 2020-21 to 2024-25.

He said that the ministry does not maintain consolidated data on the deaths of other wild animals on railway tracks, including in designated elephant corridors.

Singh confirmed that three elephants, including a mother and her calf, were killed on July 18 this year after being hit by a speeding express train on the Kharagpur-Tatanagar section in West Bengal's Paschim Midnapore district. The incident took place near Banstala between Jhargram and Banstala stations.

The minister said several measures have been taken jointly by the Environment Ministry and the Railways to prevent such accidents.

These include imposing speed restrictions in elephant habitats, pilot projects such as seismic sensor-based detection of elephants near tracks and construction of underpasses, ramps and fencing at vulnerable points.

The Wildlife Institute of India, in consultation with the ministry and other stakeholders, has also issued guidelines titled 'Eco-friendly Measures to Mitigate Impacts of Linear Infrastructure' to help agencies design railways and other projects in ways that reduce human-animal conflicts.

Singh added that capacity-building workshops were conducted for railway officials at the Wildlife Institute of India in 2023 and 2024 to raise awareness on elephant conservation and protection.

A detailed report titled 'Suggested Measures to Mitigate Elephant & Other Wildlife Train Collisions on Vulnerable Railway Stretches in India' had also been prepared after surveys across 127 railway stretches covering 3,452 km.

Of these, 77 stretches spanning 1,965 km in 14 states were prioritised for mitigation, with site-specific interventions suggested.

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