EVM row: Rahul backs Musk's hacking concerns, Chandrasekhar counters

Eleven days after the results of the Lok Sabha elections came out, the controversy surrounding the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) refuses to die down as serious allegations were made in the Mumbai North West constituency where the margin of the winning candidate was just 48 votes in a recount.

- VINAY KUMAR

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said EVMs in India are a “black box” which nobody is allowed to scrutinise, and asserted that “serious concerns” are being raised about transparency in India’s electoral process.

“Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability,” Gandhi said and tagged a media report which claimed that a relative of Shiv Sena’s candidate, who won the polls from Mumbai’s North West constituency by 48 votes, had a phone that unlocks an EVM.

Takeaways

>> Elon Musk suggested eliminating electronic voting machines due to hacking risks, despite acknowledging these risks are small

>> Chandrasekhar argued that Indian EVMs are secure, custom-designed, and isolated from any network, making them impervious to hacking

The former Congress president also tagged the post on X by Elon Musk in which he talked about eliminating EVMs.

“We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high,” Musk had said in his post on X. The Opposition parties have been raising concerns over EVMs for some time now and had demanded a 100 per cent count of the VVPAT slips which was not allowed.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said technology experts around the world are openly writing about the dangers of EVM tampering.

“We reiterate our demand that all future elections be conducted using ballot papers,’’ he said.