New Delhi/IBNS: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar has countered Tesla CEO Elon Musks call for elimination of Electronic Voting Machines or EVMs.
In an X post, Musk said the risk of EVMs getting hacked is high in response to the alleged voting irregularities in the United States.
He quoted an X post and said, We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high.
We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high. https://t.co/PHzJsoXpLh
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2024
When several Indian politicians rallied behind Musk, Chandrasekhar, a former Union Minister of State for Ministry of Electronics and IT, downplayed Musks concern alluding it to his lack of knowledge about Indias EVMs.
Chandrasekhar told ANI, While I respect Elon Musk and what he has achieved. I think he is factually incorrect in saying that anything can be hacked. A calculator or a toaster cannot be hacked. Therefore, there is a limit in terms of where this paradigm of hacking can extend. Elon Musk has not understood what the Indian EVM is.
Indian EVMs do not lend itself to being hacked because it is precisely very limited intelligence device…He is factually wrong…To claim that there cannot be a secure digital product in the world is to then say that every Tesla car can be hacked…
#WATCH | On his interaction with Elon Musk on EVMs, BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar says, While I respect Elon Musk and what he has achieved. I think he is factually incorrect in saying that anything can be hacked. A calculator or a toaster cannot be hacked. Therefore, there is pic.twitter.com/gn14Hjz3pc
ANI (@ANI) June 17, 2024
He added, I think Musk was commenting in the context of some EVMs in the US, specifically Puerto Rico. He made this very sweeping comment- all EVMs can be hacked. I am nobody to get into an argument with somebody like Elon Musk. But, that statement or that generalisation was far too sweeping for it to be left unchallenged.
Therefore, I pointed out to him, that Indian EVMs are very different from what Americans know of EVMs because the US and the Western world use connected devices. They are using traditional compute platforms that are connected to the Internet as EVMs. I pointed out that the Indian EVMs are architected and designed to be safe and secure because there is no connectivity.
If there is no connectivity to Wi-Fi or 5G or the Internet in general, there is no way to get it…So, if there is a country that can design an EVM, right, and show the world it is certainly the Indian EVMs…
#WATCH | On his interaction with Elon Musk on EVMs, BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar says, …I think Musk was commenting in the context of some EVMs in the US, specifically Puerto Rico. He made this very sweeping comment- all EVMs can be hacked. I am nobody to get into an pic.twitter.com/MEBcuQfTED
ANI (@ANI) June 17, 2024
Quoting Musks post, Congress MP-elect and top leader Rahul Gandhi wrote on X, 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. Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability.
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.
Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability. https://t.co/nysn5S8DCF pic.twitter.com/7sdTWJXOAb
Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 16, 2024
In the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, which saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi back in power with allies, several prominent opposition leaders had claimed the possibility of EVM hacking.
Rejecting such claims, the Election Commission of India said EVMs are trustworthy.
