Amidst US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s claims of finding evidence of massive vulnerabilities in EVM machines, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on April 12 stated that Electronic Vending Machines (EVMs) in the country were absolutely safe and were not being tampered with.
The CEC stated that wherever democracy was present, electoral rolls and election processes were different, and in some countries, electronic voting systems were used.
“In India, EVMs made by PSUs were used, and on these machines, legal scrutiny had been done, and the EVMs of India cannot be connected to Bluetooth infrared, and so it is not possible to tamper with them,” Kumar stated.
The CEC said India’s EVMS are tamper-proof, five crore VVPAT slips have been counted, and no discrepancies have been reported. “We want to assure the voters of India that the EVMs are completely safe,” he further stated.
Earlier on April 11, Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala questioned the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the union government for not responding to US politician Tulsi Gabbard’s remarks on the vulnerability of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). He also urged the Supreme Court to take suo moto cognizance of the issue. Taking on X, Surjewala said that Gabbard, the US Director of National Intelligence, had publicly raised the issue of EVM hacking. He quoted Gabbard as having said that EVMs are “vulnerable to exploitation to manipulate the results of the votes being cast.”
Raising a series of questions, Surjewala asked why the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commission’s official handle were silent on the matter and accused the poll body of planting “source-based stories” to counter Gabbard’s statement.
Referring to Gabbard’s recent felicitation in India on March 17, Surjewala said it was less than a month ago that she was honoured in the country.
“Is it fair and just to outrightly rubbish and reject the statement made by the Director of National Intelligence of the US, whom we felicitated?” he asked.
(With inputs from ANI)
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