Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has defended India’s Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) as “tamper-proof” and immune to manipulation.

The Election Commission’s assurance comes at a time when questions around electoral integrity are being raised—both within the country and beyond.

“In India, EVMs are used for polling exercises. Legal scrutiny has been done on EVMs. The EVMs used in India can neither be connected to the internet nor bluetooth nor infrared. The EVMs cannot be connected to anything in any way. Therefore, it is not possible to tamper with it. So, India’s EVMs are tamper-proof,” Kumar told journalists in Jharkhand’s Ramgarh district Saturday.

It’s a claim the central poll panel has made repeatedly. But this time, it comes in the wake of a statement from Tulsi Gabbard, US Director of National Intelligence, who said during a Cabinet meeting with former US President Donald Trump on April 10 that there is “evidence” EVMs can be exploited to manipulate results.

Gabbard pushed for a return to paper ballots.

“Why the deafening silence of Modi ji, his Sarkar and the EC?” senior Congress leader Randeep Surjewala asked on Friday, demanding that the Supreme Court take suo motu cognisance and order an independent probe.

“Maharashtra election was a fraud like never before aimed at destroying democracy,” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said at the AICC session in Ahmedabad Wednesday. “The whole world is moving from EVMs to ballot paper but we are using EVMs. This is all fraud. They ask us to prove it. You have devised such techniques that benefit the ruling party and put the opposition at a disadvantage. The youngsters of this country will rise and say – we want ballot paper.”

Despite mounting political pressure, the Election Commission is holding its ground. Kumar cited the counting of over five crore VVPAT slips with no discrepancies as proof of the system’s reliability.

In February, the Supreme Court clarified that the process of verifying the burnt memory of EVM microcontrollers does not involve erasing or reloading any data.

Earlier, in August 2022, 11 opposition parties, including the Congress had claimed EVMs cannot be assumed to be tamper-proof.

The controversy gained currency during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls too.

While the BJP had claimed that the Opposition blames EVMs unable to digest their electoral losses, the EC has always termed the apprehensions as baseless.