Rahul Gandhi backs Elon Musk's tweet on EVMs
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2024-06-16 10:02 GMT
New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said that EVMs in India are a "black box" that nobody is allowed to scrutinise, asserting that "serious concerns" are being raised about transparency in the country's electoral process.
"Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability," Mr Gandhi said in a post on X and tagged a media report that claimed that a relative of Shiv Sena's candidate, who won the polls from Mumbai's North-West seat by 48 votes, had a phone that unlocks an EVM.
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," Mr Musk said in his post.
However, former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar countered Mr Musk's criticism of EVMs and said that the billionaire businessman's view may apply to the US and other countries where they use regular compute platforms to build "Internet-connected voting machines".
“But the Indian EVMs are custom designed, secure and isolated from any network or media -- no connectivity, no Bluetooth, no wifi and no Internet. There is no way in. Factory-programmed controllers that cannot be reprogrammed," Mr Chandrasekhar said in a post on X, adding, “Electronic voting machines can be architected and built right as India has done. We would be happy to run a tutorial, Elon."
In a post on X in Hindi, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said, "Technology is meant to solve problems, but if it becomes the cause of problems, then its use should be stopped."
Targeting the BJP over the issue, Mr Yadav said, "Today, when fears of EVM tampering are being expressed in many elections around the world and the world's renowned technology experts are openly writing about the danger of EVM tampering, then what is the reason behind the insistence on using EVM? The BJP should clarify this."
The Opposition parties have been raising concerns over EVMs for some time now and are demanding a 100 per cent count of the VVPAT slips, which was not allowed.
"Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability," Mr Gandhi said in a post on X and tagged a media report that claimed that a relative of Shiv Sena's candidate, who won the polls from Mumbai's North-West seat by 48 votes, had a phone that unlocks an EVM.
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," Mr Musk said in his post.
However, former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar countered Mr Musk's criticism of EVMs and said that the billionaire businessman's view may apply to the US and other countries where they use regular compute platforms to build "Internet-connected voting machines".
“But the Indian EVMs are custom designed, secure and isolated from any network or media -- no connectivity, no Bluetooth, no wifi and no Internet. There is no way in. Factory-programmed controllers that cannot be reprogrammed," Mr Chandrasekhar said in a post on X, adding, “Electronic voting machines can be architected and built right as India has done. We would be happy to run a tutorial, Elon."
In a post on X in Hindi, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said, "Technology is meant to solve problems, but if it becomes the cause of problems, then its use should be stopped."
Targeting the BJP over the issue, Mr Yadav said, "Today, when fears of EVM tampering are being expressed in many elections around the world and the world's renowned technology experts are openly writing about the danger of EVM tampering, then what is the reason behind the insistence on using EVM? The BJP should clarify this."
The Opposition parties have been raising concerns over EVMs for some time now and are demanding a 100 per cent count of the VVPAT slips, which was not allowed.