New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday expressed his gratitude to voters and to party workers for the outcomes in the state assembly elections 2018 which largely favoured Congress. He, however, maintained that the issue of EVMs being open to tampering remains regardless of the most-recent electoral outcomes.
Congress is set to form the next government in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, and was engaged in a neck-and-neck battle with BJP in Madhya Pradesh. While Rahul said the results were encouraging for his party and ominous for BJP, he maintained that EVMs cannot be given a clean chit. "The issue with EVMs is not specific to India and is universal. The world over, the possible problems with EVMs - that it has a chip that can be manipulated to affect or disturb elections - is recognised. Our problems with EVMs in India remains," he said.
Congress has previously blamed EVMs for electoral losses but barring in Telangana this time, such complaints were missing on Tuesday. Critics blasted Congress for crying foul in Telangana and said that because it lost here, the state party unit was pointing fingers. They also said asked why Congress is not mentioning EVMs and how they can, apparently, be tampered with in states where Congress either won or had the lead.
On his part, Rahul said paper ballot remains the preferred method because people - according to him - are not comfortable with EVMs.
