Akhilesh Yadav latches on to Elon Musk's claim on EVMs, says voting must be conducted on ballot papers

NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav has latched on to Elon Musk's X post regarding the risk of using electronic voting machines. Akhilesh Yadav demanded that upcoming elections should be conducted on ballot papers.

"Technology is to remove problems, if they become a cause of problems, their use must be stopped. When risks of EVM tampering are being flagged in several elections across the world and well-known technology experts are flagging risks, the BJP must clear the air on why they are bent on using EVMs," he said.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on his X account that electronic voting machines poses risk and should be eliminated.

"We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high.," Musk posted on X.

Meanwhile, former Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar took to X countering Elon Musk's claim.

"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," he replied to Musk over X.

But Musk's responded to Rajeev Chandrasekhar that anything can be hacked.