NEW DELHI: In a rebuttal to opposition parties’ vociferous demand on reverting to paper ballot elections, BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday said it would mean going back to the days of booth capturing.

Participating in a debate in Lok Sabha on ‘election reforms’, the former Union law minister said the opposition should not talk of returning to the old ballot paper system. There are at least two dozen Supreme Court and high court judgments validating the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs), he said.

Prasad recalled that the Election Commission had invited parties to hack EVMs in its presence, but none turned up. “Now they are raising hue and cry against EVMs,” he said. Prasad also noted that after the recent Bihar elections, “not one plea” was received to check the micro-controllers of EVMs.

The government has repeatedly ruled out going back to the ballot paper system as EVMs have made the election process faster and safer, Prasad said .

Responding to KC Venugopal’s charges on removing CJI from the panel of selecting election commissioners, the BJP MP said when an elected government headed by the prime minister can be trusted with the nuclear button, why can’t it be the case when selecting a good CEC or EC. He wondered why the judiciary should be included in everything when the legislature in its wisdom has passed a law with a selection committee that excluded the CJI.