Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s call to do away with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) on Sunday prompted a fresh debate in India on their dependability with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi flagging “serious concerns” about transparency in the nation’s electoral process. Although Musk’s remarks had nothing to do with Indian elections, issueless Indian opposition parties grabbed the opportunity just like any person dying of thirst drinking virtually anything to survive. The remarks had come in reaction to reports that the election commission of Puerto Rico was reviewing its contract with a USA-based electronic voting company after discrepancies in the voting process in the island territory emerged.“We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high,” Musk posted on his social media platform X.

Musk’s post unnecessarily and expectedly attained a political dimension in India, where opposition parties have been questioning the demeanor of the Election Commision (EC) while also raising questions on the trustworthiness of EVMs.

On Sunday, a new controversy broke out over the poll result of the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha seat. RavindraWaikar, candidate of EknathShinde’s Shiv Sena, had been victorious on the seat by a narrow margin of 48 votes. Mid-Day reported irresponsibly without doing proper research that a relative of Waikarhad entered the counting station with a mobile phone allegedly linked to EVMs. The returning officer handed out a notice to the newspaper, dismissing the allegations made in the report. Nevertheless, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, taking to X, said the returning officer’s statement further “implicated” the election office and raised many more questions.

Meanwhile, Musk’s comment drew retorts not just from the Opposition, but also the ruling BJP. BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, “We shouldn’t make EVM either a god or demon. EVM has gone through many ‘agnipariksha’ and has been successful in it. Earlier people used to attack it nationally and now some ‘international contract killers’ have stood up against it.”Responding to Musk, Rajeev Chandrasekhar (former minister of state for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) sought to defend the EVMs employed in Indian elections, stating that they are isolated from any network or media.Musk replied to the BJP leader, saying, “Anything can be hacked.”

In a post on X, Rahul Gandhi termed EVMs a “black box”.Several others in the Opposition also took a swipe at the Centre over Musk’s post. For example, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aditya Thackeray (more importantly son of Uddhav Thackrey) remarked: “What’s the bet that the @X account of @elonmusk will be sent a notice to close down by the Union Govt or EC?”PriyankKharge (Karnataka IT minister and son of Congress president MallikarjunKharge) demanded an ethical hackathon from EC to dispel the fears of a possible manipulation of EVMs.