Rahul Gandhi Joins EVM Debate After Elon Musk Flags Hacking Risk

Following tech billionaire Elon Musk’s call to eliminate electronic voting machines, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi described EVMs in India as a “black box” and cited a news report that has raised concerns over the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha seat result.

“EVMs in India are a ‘black box,’ and nobody is allowed to scrutinize them. Serious concerns are being raised about transparency in our electoral process,” Rahul Gandhi wrote on X.

“Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability,” he added, posting a snippet of a news report about the controversy surrounding the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha seat. According to the report, Mangesh Pandilkar, the brother-in-law of winning candidate Ravindra Waikar, has been booked for allegedly using a mobile phone at the counting center on June 4. Pandilkar reportedly used the phone to generate the OTP necessary to unlock the EVM machine at the NESCO Centre, as reported by Mid-Day. The phone has been sent to forensics to examine call records and verify if it was used for other purposes.

“This is a fraud at the highest level and yet the @ECISVEEP continues to sleep… If ECI doesn’t step in this will be the biggest election result scam after the Chandigarh Mayor election and will see this battle in the courts. This brazenness has to be punished,” Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi posted on X.

Sena UBT leader Aditya Thackeray added, “Surprisingly, or not, the Entirely Compromised- election commission, has refused to share CCTV footage of the counting centre. I guess it’s trying to avoid another Chandigarh moment.”

Also read: Amit Shah Chairs High-Level Meeting On J&K Security And Amarnath Yatra Preparations

Meanwhile, Elon Musk sparked a debate by questioning the security of EVMs. “We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high,” he posted on X.

This prompted BJP leader and former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar to argue that secure digital hardware is achievable.

“Indian EVMs are custom designed, secure, and isolated from any network or media – No connectivity, no Bluetooth, wifi, Internet. ie there is no way in. Factory programmed controllers that cannot be reprogrammed.”

Chandrasekhar even offered Musk a tutorial on how to design and build secure electronic voting machines.

Musk, however, reiterated his concerns, saying “Anything can be hacked.”