EVMs in India are 'black box', nobody allowed to scrutinise: Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday, 16 June, said electronic voting machines (EVMs) in India are a "black box" which nobody is allowed to scrutinise, and asserted that "serious concerns" are being raised about transparency in India's electoral process.

"Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability," Rahul Gandhi said and tagged a media report which claimed that a relative of Shiv Sena's candidate, who won the polls from Mumbai's north west by 48 votes, had a phone that unlocks an EVM.

The Congress leader also tagged the post on X by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in which he talked about eliminating EVMs from the elections in the United States.

"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.

His remarks came amidst growing debates over the security of EVMs worldwide, especially following allegations of voting irregularities in Puerto Rico's primary elections.

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.

With PTI inputs