Elon Musk vs ex-Union Minister over EVMs, Rahul Gandhi jumps in too

Elon Musk vs ex-Union Minister over EVMs, Rahul Gandhi jumps in too

Former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar has pushed back against billionare tech magnate Elon Musk's comments on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), labelling them as a "huge sweeping generalisation" without basis.

Elon Musk, in a post on X, raised concerns about electronic voting machines, suggesting they should be eliminated due to the potential risk of being hacked by humans or AI, even if the risk is minimal.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who served as Minister of State for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in Modi Cabinet 2.0, countered Musk's view, stating it might apply to the US and other regions where standard computing platforms are used to build "Internet-connected voting machines."

However, Chandrasekhar asserted that this is not the case in India, where EVMs are custom-designed, secure, and isolated from any network or media.

"This is a huge sweeping generalization statement that implies no one can build secure digital hardware. Wrong. @elonmusk's view may apply to US n other places - where they use regular compute platforms to build Internet connected Voting machines. But Indian EVMs are custom designed, secure and isolated from any network or media - No connectivity, no bluetooth, wifi, Internet. ie there is no way in. Factory programmed controllers that cannot be reprogrammed," Chandrasekhar tweeted.

The entrepreneur-turned-politician also offered to provide a tutorial to the SpaceX boss to demonstrate the robustness of EVMs designed in India.

"Electronic voting machines can be architected and built right as India has done. We wud be happy to run a tutorial Elon," he said.

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi also entered the controversy. The Gandhi scion, who has been often questioned the transparency of EVMs in India, backed Musk's view on the matter and said, "EVMs in India are a "black box," and nobody is allowed to scrutinize them."

In a post on X, he said, "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."