Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Monday tweeted a short video clip of a BJP lawmaker making a sensational claim that irrespective of which button a voter presses in the electronic voting machine (EVM), the vote will be cast in favour of the BJP.
MLA Bakshish Singh Virk, who represents the Assandh constituency in Haryana, was addressing a meeting in the State.
“The most honest man in the BJP,” tweeted Mr. Gandhi with the video that had a graphic headline saying ‘BJP MLA threatens voters’.
In the 39-second video, the MLA, speaking in Punjabi, is heard saying he would get to know who the electors had voted for, as both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Manohar Lal (Haryana Chief Minister) were ‘very intelligent’.
The clip ends with the MLA saying no matter “which button [representing different parties] a voter presses, the vote will go to the BJP as a part has been fixed”.
Even though in the past, Opposition parties had raised doubts about the possibility of EVM tampering, the Election Commission of India had always maintained that the EVMs cannot be tampered.
Earlier, the poll panel had even challenged political parties and technical experts to ‘demonstrate’ their charge of EVM tampering by doing so in the EVMs kept by it.
No party, however, accepted the challenge to try and ‘tamper’ an EVM under the control and custody of the Commission.