Press Trust of indiaNew Delhi: 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 the country’s electoral process.
Congress’ ally and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also questioned credibility of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and demanded that all future elections should be conducted through ballot papers.
“Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability,” Gandhi said in a post on X and tagged a media report which 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 a post by Tesla CEO 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.
In a post on X in Hindi, SP chief Yadav said, “Technology is meant to solve problems, if it becomes the cause of problems then its use should be stopped.”
Targeting the BJP over the issue, Yadav said, “Today, when fears of EVM tampering are being expressed in many elections of 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, BJP should clarify this.”
Yadav also tagged the Musk’s post and reiterated his party’s demand that all future elections be conducted using ballot papers.
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.
