The Election Commission of India (ECI)’s all-party meeting on Monday to demonstrate and discuss the remote voting machine (RVM) for migrant voters was met with strong objections from opposition parties who questioned the need to deploy such a system, according to party leaders who attended it.

The poll watchdog failed to hold any demonstrations during the meeting, which was attended by presidents, chairpersons and general secretaries of eight national and 40 recognised regional political parties, and extended the deadline to submit written views from January 31 to February 28.

Last month, ECI called for the all-party meeting for a day-long discussion on the “broad objectives of every effort to include non-voting electors in the election process”.

“More than 80 representatives of political parties patiently listened to each other’s submissions. They appreciated ECI’s initiative to call for an all-party discussion and suggested more such discussions on a regular basis in the future,” an EC official said, seeking anonymity.

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“All matters related to legal, administrative aspects and logistical challenges for remote voting were discussed threadbare. Some political parties sought demonstration of the RVM in the states while others wanted the very concept of domestic migrants to be defined before taking the matter ahead,” the official added.

On December 29, ECI said it has developed a prototype of a multi-constituency remote electronic voting machine for domestic migrants, a potentially landmark development that can boost voter participation and eliminate problems of travelling to home districts during polls for voting. The commission had earlier sought the written views of recognised political parties by January 31 on various issues such as changes required in legislation, changes in administrative procedures and voting method/RVM/technology, if any other, for the domestic migrants.

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On Monday, it extended the deadline to February 28.

Currently, a voter has to physically travel to the district where they are a registered voter in order to cast their vote, but if the new initiative is implemented, migrant voters will not be required to travel to their home district to exercise their franchise and will be able to use a remote electronic voting machine (EVM) instead.

Following the all-party meeting on Monday, opposition parties questioned the efficacy, transparency and feasibility of the RVM. “A note has been prepared by the ECI and a presentation given to us, but they are themselves confused,” Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said.

“When there is no survey of migrant labourers, how can they provide facilities to them? Our thing is simple, like Ceasar’s wife, the ECI and CEC (chief election commissioner) should be above suspicion. And believe me, there is a huge question on the efficacy of the EVMs (electronic voting machines) itself. The machine can be hacked. If money can be stolen by hacking the account of the reserve bank of nations, what is an EVM machine,” he added.

Singh said “the issue of the need to have such a machine should be settled first”.

AAP leader Sanjay Singh also questioned the need for an RVM, saying there were other ways to increase participation of voters. “How will we campaign in different states among eligible migrant voters using RVM? When there is a bypoll on one seat, say Jalandhar, RVM is not acceptable,” he said. RJD leader Manoj Jha also said several objections were raised during the meeting.

HT reached out to Union minister and BJP leader Bhupendra Yadav who attended the meeting for a comment but did not get a response immediately.