Hyderabad: Former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has joined the growing chorus of voices calling for a reversion to voting via ballot papers in elections, raising concerns over the risks of using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
Jagan’s latest take on EVMs is in total contrast to that of the Bharatiya Janata Party, with which he had maintained a friendly equation during the last five years.
The BJP — leader of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is a member of — has been strongly backing the use of electronic machines. But the Opposition, led by the Congress, wants to either do away with EVMs or have 100 percent VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) verification.
Two weeks after the massive defeat faced by the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) in the Andhra Pradesh assembly elections and Lok Sabha polls, Jagan, the party chief, took to social media to say that “almost every advanced democracy” across the world uses paper ballots and not EVMs.
“Just as justice should not only be served, but should also appear to have been served, so should democracy not only prevail but must appear to be prevalent undoubtedly,” he wrote on X.
Just as justice should not only be served, but should also appear to have been served, so should democracy not only prevail but must appear to be prevalent undoubtedly.
In electoral practices across the world in almost every advanced democracy, paper ballots are used, not EVMs.…
— YS Jagan Mohan Reddy (@ysjagan) June 18, 2024
Notably, current chief minister and TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu had also expressed serious apprehensions about EVM voting before and after the 2019 polls, which the TDP had lost.
In a meeting with party leaders in January 2019, when he was the Andhra CM and shared a strained relationship with the BJP in the Centre, Naidu had reportedly said that international cyber experts had “provided ample evidence” that “EVMs could be tampered with”.
“There should be no room for suspicion in democracy, and nobody should have doubts on the voting process. Democracy in doubt is dangerous,” he had said, claiming that VVPAT receipts were the fruit of his party’s efforts.
A day after the simultaneous assembly and Lok Sabha polls in the state that year, Naidu had furiously accused the Election Commission of making the election process “a big mess and a farce”. The TDP chief had then claimed that about 40 percent of EVMs in the state had “either malfunctioned or not functioned at all”.
He had then gone on to accuse the ECI of making a “mockery of democracy”, and having turned into “a BJP branch office”.
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‘AP’s Elon Musk’
TDP general secretary and a minister in Naidu’s cabinet, Nara Lokesh, called Jagan “allergic to democracy” in a post on X.
Let’s face it @ysjagan, you’re allergic to democracy. You systematically destroyed institutions, systems and practices devoted to protecting people’s rights. You struck down in one stroke what the people of AP built collectively over the years.
When you won in 2019, EVMs worked… https://t.co/JMsxb4zVKg pic.twitter.com/uFnOXIhfdM
— Lokesh Nara (@naralokesh) June 18, 2024
Another TDP leader and MLA, Somireddy Chandra Mohan Reddy, said that Jagan seemed to not have recovered from the poll defeat shock yet, and dubbed him “AP’s Elon Musk” in a post on X.
“When you won 151 seats, it was your achievement, and when you lost miserably, the blame is on the EVMs? What logic is this?” he wrote.
Another leader Buddha Venkanna challenged Jagan to resign from the Pulivendula assembly seat and seek re-election with ballot papers. “Let us see if you can regain the same majority,” he said.
Speaking to ThePrint, former member of the Legislative Council and TDP national spokesperson Deepak Reddy said that Jagan’s X post was a desperate attempt to hold back YSRCP leaders and cadres ready to jump ship.
Asked about the TDP chief’s own reservations about the EVMs back in 2019, Deepak said that the doubts were clarified.
“The Supreme Court had also reviewed concerns expressed from various quarters. We have no apprehensions now. But the YSRCP chief is insulting our robust election process, in contempt of the apex court’s observations,” he said.
The pivot in Jagan’s stance has come with the backdrop of a raging debate in the country over the efficacy of EVMs, further fuelled by billionaire Elon Musk’s call for the elimination of the voting machines.
“We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high,” the Tesla founder and X chief had posted on the microblogging site Saturday.
Musk’s post was in response to another post by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate in the US presidential elections 2024, on the alleged irregularities related to EVMs in Puerto Rico primary elections. Puerto Rico is a politically unincorporated territory of the US.
In India, where the biggest electoral exercise in the world was wrapped up earlier this month, the post gained a lot of traction and drew some sharp responses.
Musk’s claim was strongly countered by former minister of state for IT and electronics Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who said that electronic devices unconnected to any network cannot be hacked.
“Musk has not understood what the Indian EVM is. Indian EVM does not lend itself to being hacked because it is a very limited intelligence device,” Chandrasekhar told a media agency, adding that Musk’s claim would imply that Tesla cars could also be hacked.
Jagan’s EVM post came a day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s comment on the same issue.
“When democratic institutions are captured, the only safeguard lies in electoral processes that are transparent to the public. EVM is currently a black box. EC must either ensure complete transparency of the machines and processes, or abolish them,” Gandhi posted on X Monday.
TDP’s Deepak Reddy said that the chronology confirmed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion during the Andhra Pradesh election rallies that the Congress and YSRCP were “pieces of the same cloth”.
However, YSRCP national spokesperson Kanumuri Ravichandra Reddy said that his party was not disputing the election verdict, but wanted the next elections to be based on ballot papers.
“Naidu is not making any noise now as the poll results were in TDP’s favour,” Kanumuri told ThePrint.
He attributed Jagan’s newfound concern to the “fast expanding AI technology and the hacking danger it poses for the EVMs”.
“Look at the penetration of AI in our lives already. It looks like anything, anywhere can be hacked. In any case, why is it that only the BJP and the ECI are batting for the EVMs, when almost every other party in the country has opposed EVMs at one point or the other? The YSRCP demands a ban on EVMs,” Kanumuri said.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)