MOHIUDDIN ALAMGIR

Electronic voting machines, first introduced in 2011 in Bangladesh, and touted as a great tool for voters to exercise their franchise, were adopted on a large scale for voting in six constituencies in 2018. Before the national election in December that year, the Election Commission bought 1.5 lakh EVMs at Tk 2.35 lakh each, over 11 times the price of the machines used in India.

While the Indian machines last 15 years, 40,000 of the EVMs procured by the Bangladesh Election Commission did not even last five years due to poor storage and maintenance system. In the process, Tk 940 crore of public money was lost.

The money squandered over the EVMs is almost Tk 200 crore more But the A

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