Congress joins hands with international players to spread propaganda against the EVMs

In an event organised by the Indian Journalists’ Association (IJA), Europe on Jan 21, 2019, the experts claimed that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) can be hacked, and the 2014 Lok Sabha elections were rigged. The IJAs invite reads, “His contention is these machines are not only hackable but have routinely been hacked in recent Indian national and state elections so as to rig elections.”

Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal also attended the event that was dedicated to display the vulnerability of the EVMs. A huge controversy has erupted after the news of his presence at EVM hackathon broke out. It sparked allegations that he and his party were behind the event which was aimed at maligning India’s democratic process.

The self-proclaimed expert, Syed Suja, who addressed the conference through skype made some ludicrous claims. He said that every election since 2014 had been rigged irrespective of the outcome by tampering with the EVMs’. He peddled many other conspiracy theories which includes

• BJP IT cell rigged the 2014 general elections with the help of Reliance Jio. (Jio was launched in 2016)
• He went to claim that the Congress, SP, AAP and many other parties had approached him (Syed Suja) to rig elections in their favour. Earlier Syed Suja claimed that he was also part of designing EVMs in India between 2009 and 2014.
• The BJP murdered its senior leader Gopinath Munde because he came to know about the truth of EVM tampering. Gauri Lankesh was also murdered for the same reason.
• Delhi Polls were rigged in favour of the AAP.
• UP and Gujarat state assembly elections were rigged while the recently concluded assembly elections in three states of Hindi heartland- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh- were not.

This event in which conspiracy theories were propounded was organized by Ashish Ray. Ray is the one who organised Rahul Gandhi’s event in London.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley lambasted the Congress, as he Tweeted;

Senior Journalists also slammed those who were found spreading rumors about the EVMs.

Meanwhile, the Congress party is on the back foot and has claimed that Kapil Sibal was invited by a journalist and he did not represent the Congress party at the EVM hackathon. Other senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi came to Sibal’s rescue and said that Sibal himself had clarified about the invitation by a journalist. Singhvi added, “But he was certainly not claiming to be representing the Congress party”. They made a similar excuse for Sidhu and Aljo Joseph.

With respect to conspiracy theories, Singhvi said, “The charges made are very serious. I cannot vouch for them or deny them, as they have not been investigated. But they certainly need investigation. These should be looked into with an open mind by the election commission.”

The Election Commission has released a statement in which it rubbished all the allegations as baseless and said that it mulls ways on how legal action can be initiated against the conspiracy theorists, found running malicious propaganda against election commission and EVMs.

In the past, the Election Commission had challenged the political parties to hack the EVMs. This move came after various political parties launched protests over EVMs being vulnerable to hacking. However, none of the political parties came forward to accept the challenge. Despite multiple well-organized campaigns against the EVMs, the Congress has failed to generate interest in this regard among the masses. So, apparently, it seems that the grand old party is organizing conferences on foreign soil in order to undermine Indian Institutions and to malign India’s democratic process.

It seems that some political parties are eager to return back to the ballot paper era where booth capturing, vote rigging could be easily achieved. The West Bengal Panchayati elections provide a good case to show what would be the political scenario if elections are organized with the help of ballot paper.