‘Chat bhi meri, pat bhi meri’: Jyotiraditya Scindia attacks Rahul Gandhi over EVM hack claims

Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.

Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia attacked Congress MP Rahul Gandhi over his remarks on the electronic voting machines (EVM), saying that people of the country are aware that the Congress party makes claims of EVM hacking if they lose the elections.

This comes shortly after Gandhi reacted to a post by billionaire Elon Musk, pointing out the risks of EVM hacking by humans or artificial intelligence.

While taking a swipe at Gandhi, Jyotiraditya Scindia said, "Chat bhi meri, pat bhi meri', this will not work every time. If you win EVM is Hero and if you lose EVM. People of the country are now aware of this policy of the Congress party, that's why they have made BJP government for the third time with full majority..."

Scindia's remarks add on the the slugfest over EVM tampering claims, sparked by Elon Musk's tweet and a media report which alleged that the Shiv Sena candidate in Mumbai North West Lok Sabha constituency was found using a mobile phone "connected" to an electronic voting machine during the counting of votes on June 4.

In his recent X post, Elon Musk said, “We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high.” Tagging this post by the Tesla CEO, Gandhi wrote, “Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability.” The Congress leader also attached the media report alleging EVM hacking in Mumbai.

While opposition leaders banded together to attack the Centre over alleged EVM hacking, former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar countered Musk's criticism of the electronic voting machines. He said that the risks of using EVMs may apply to US and other places where they use regular compute platforms to build "Internet connected voting machines".

Chandrasekhar said in an X post, “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.”

"Electronic voting machines can be architected and built right as India has done. We would be happy to run a tutorial Elon," the BJP leader added.

(With inputs from agencies)

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