(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Finance Minister Arun Jaitley yesterday rejected claims of EVM (electronic voting machine) hacking in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls at a press conference in London by a self-proclaimed cyber expert as 'absolutely rubbish and a 'big lie and attacked the Congress for demanding a probe into the issue.
In a series of tweets Jaitley, who is in the US, said the Congress should not feel that people are so gullible that they will swallow any garbage. 'After Rafale, the non-existent loan waiver to 15 industrialists the next big lie EVM (electronic voting machine) hacking. Was the election commission & millions of staffers involved in manufacturing, programming of EVMs & conduct of elections during the UPA government in collusion with the BJP absolutely rubbish.
'Does the Congress feel that the people are so gullible that they will swallow any garbage? Insanity in the Congress party is increasingly becoming contagious, he said.
The Congress yesterday said the election commission should probe claims by a US-based self-claimed cyber expert Syed Shuja that the 2014 Lok Sabha elections were 'rigged and said the probe panel should go for 50% check of polling through VVPATs.
Shuja had also claimed that BJP leader Gopinath Munde was 'killed as he knew about the 'hacking. He also claimed 'if his people had not intercepted the BJP's attempts to hack the transmissions during this year's assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, they would have won those states as well.
Accusing the Congress and other opposition parties of indulging in ‘negative politics' over the EVMs, the BJP hit out at them, saying that sensing defeat in the coming elections, they have started spreading such rumours.
'There are a few powers behind the hacking, which has hacked the brain of Congress and Congress is working with that mindset, Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters here.
Defending the EVMs, Naqvi said the Election Commission (EC) has a number of times asked the political parties to approach it and give evidence over the issue of hacking EVMs. 'But they never approached the commission, Naqvi said.
Meanwhile, the election commission yesterday firmly rejected Shuja's claims and said it was examining legal action over the 'motivated slugfest.
The election commission in statement said, 'It has come to the notice of election commission that an event claiming to demonstrate EVMs used by EC can be tampered with, has been organised in London. 'Whereas, ECI has been wary of becoming a party to this motivated slugfest, ECI firmly stands by the empirical facts about foolproof nature of ECI EVMs deployed in elections in India, it said.
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