EC calls All Party Meet on 12 May

The Election Commission has convened an all-party meeting on May 12 in New Delhi to discuss the issue of reliability of electronic voting machines flagged by 16 opposition parties.

Efforts would be made in the meeting to convince the parties that the machines are reliable and tamper-proof.

Seven national parties and 49 state parties have been invited for the meeting.

A statement from the Commission said that the issue of EVMs, change in rules regarding recount of votes using paper trail data, making bribery in elections a cognisable offence and disqualification of candidates charge-sheeted for electoral bribery would be discussed.

While there was no mention of the proposed EVM hacking challenge in the statement, sources say, the date of the proposed challenge would be decided after the all-party meeting.