Janata Dal (United) on Monday severely criticised Rahul Gandhi and INDIA bloc for raising an entirely unnecessary issue over Electronic Voting Machines and accused them of hatching a conspiracy to raise questions over the recently held Lok Sabha elections.
Senior JD(U) leader KC Tyagi said that even after repeated assurances from concerned authorities about the veracity and reliability of EVMs, opposition hastily latched onto Elon Musk's baseless allegations to whip up fresh controversy.
“Election Commission has time and again clarified that the EVMs can’t be manipulated. The former IT minister also explained how the EVMs are custom designed and disconnected from the internet, not allowing any room for hacking,” KC Tyagi.
Tyagi's comments came after Rahul Gandhi termed EVMs as 'black boxes' and said doubts still persist about transparency in the electoral process.
“EVMs in India are a black box, and nobody is allowed to scrutinise 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,” Rahul Gandhi said in a post on X on Sunday.
The JD(U) leader said he would have no hesitation in stating that such allegations related to the manipulation of EVMs were baseless, and hence Elon Musk's remarks on Twitter were not gospel truth and blindly accepting them as certainly not tenable.
He pointed out that the elections were conducted fairly without any accusations until Musk's statement, after which deliberate attempts were made to stir controversy ahead of the 2024 polls.
He drew an analogy between the present uproar over EVMs and the one which had erupted after the landslide victory of Indira Gandhi in 1971 polls.
to queries about the Lok Sabha Speaker election, he said his JD(U) group will support any nominee put up by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The election for the post of the Lok Sabha Speaker is scheduled for June 26.
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