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New Delhi: The results of the Lok Sabha elections in India have come. BJP is far from a clear majority and the opposition has become stronger with the Congress coming back to power. At such a time, it seemed that the issue of EVM would not be raised. On the other hand, US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy tweeted about EVM tampering in Puerto Rico. Elon Musk, one of the richest people in the world and owner of social media platform X, re-tweeted his tweet and claimed that artificial intelligence can hack EVMs and it should be removed. Musk's tweet has once again brought the issue of EVM to the center of politics in India and opposition leaders Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav have fueled the EVM controversy.
Lok Sabha elections in India are over. However, presidential elections are being held in the world's most powerful democracy, America. At such a time, sharing the tweet of US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Elon Musk wrote on his social media platform X, we should end the use of electronic voting machines. The risk of EVMs being hacked by humans or artificial intelligence (AI) is low, but real.
With this tweet by Elon Musk, politics has once again heated up on the issue of EVMs in India. Once again the opposition's Bharat Alliance has raised its voice on the EVM issue. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday shared Elon Musk's tweet and said that EVMs in India are 'black boxes' and no one is allowed to check them.
Serious concerns are being raised about the transparency of our electoral process. When institutions lack accountability, democracy becomes a sham and the likelihood of fraud increases.
Along with Rahul Gandhi, Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav also started singing his old tune on EVMs on Sunday. Akhilesh Yadav said on social media platforms that today there is a fear of EVM tampering in many elections of the world and the world's information technology experts are openly writing about the danger of EVM tampering, then what is the reason behind BJP's insistence on using EVMs? He said, we again demand that all the upcoming elections should be conducted using ballot papers.
Amidst the allegations of the opposition on the EVM issue, former Union Minister Rajiv Chandrashekhar came forward in defense of EVM.
BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who was minister of state in the Ministry of Electronics and IT in the previous Modi government, on Sunday hit back at Musk's statement on stopping the use of EVMs and termed his claim as a “generalisation”. He also said that Musk failed to recognise the potential of creating secure digital hardware.
“This is a very broad generalized statement that no one can build secure digital hardware. It's wrong,” he wrote on X.
Musk's concerns may apply to countries where voting machines are built using standard computing platforms with internet connectivity.
But this does not apply to India. Indian EVMs are custom designed. It is secure and isolated from any network or media – no connectivity, no Bluetooth, no WiFi, no internet. That means there is no way. Factory programmed controllers that cannot be reprogrammed.
Rajiv Chandrasekhar also presented Musk with a tutorial on how to properly design and build secure electronic voting machines.
India has developed secure electronic voting machines. We can give them a tutorial.
