The Election Commission of India (ECI) approached the Delhi Police on Tuesday over an event in London where a man identifying himself as a cyber expert said voting machines used in India were being rigged, an allegation that triggered a spat between political parties. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cornered the Opposition Congress, which sought to deflect accusations that it had a role in the event after its senior leader Kapil Sibal was seen attending it.

Syed Shuja had on Monday said he was a former staffer of Electronic Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), a Hyderabad-based company that makes crucial components for Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) used in the country, and that he was aware of ways how these could be compromised. Shuja also said that votes in several elections beginning with the 2014 Lok Sabha polls had been rigged in favour of the BJP.

“Mr Shuja has claimed he was part of the EVM design team and he can hack the EVMs used in India… The act of Mr Shuja is violative of the IPC [Indian Penal Code], particularly section 505 (1) of the IPC,” the poll panel told Delhi Police. The section quoted in the letter pertains to spreading rumours that cause panic.

ECIL on Tuesday issued a statement saying Shuja has never been an employee of the company. “The claims by Syed Shuja that he had worked with ECIL are utterly rubbish. No such person had worked with our engineering team working on EVMs either before 2010 or between 2010 and 2014. We have already made it clear to the Election Commission,” ECIL official spokesperson and scientist Ramesh Gollapudi said.

With his party seemingly on the backfoot after the allegations - a party spokesperson on Monday said the Congress did not vouch for the allegations - Congress leader Kapil Sibal, who attended the event where Shuja made the statement through a video call , rejected criticism and said the claims required an investigation. “There should be an inquiry in the charges he (Shuja) has made. The Supreme Court and the law says there should be an FIR (first information report). It is your [government’s] responsibility, if someone is making allegations it is important to ascertain whether the charges are right or not. If the charges are wrong, take action against him. If they are right, then it is a very serious thing,” Sibal said.

Hours earlier, Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad hit out at Sibal. “What was Sibal doing there? In what capacity was he present? My charge is that he was there to monitor the event for the Congress. It was a Congress-sponsored conspiracy designed to defame Indian democracy and its Election Commission,” Prasad said.

Justifying his attendance at the event, Sibal said he was present there after its organiser and journalist Ashish Ray sent him a personal invitation. “Since I know him, I told him that I would be there for some other work but I would certainly attend it and I attended it,” he told reporters in London.

One of two groups that organised the event distanced itself Shuja’s allegations while the other called for an inquiry. The Foreign Press Association (FPA) said it “strongly disassociates” itself from claims made by the speaker. The other organiser, the Indian Journalists Association (IJA), said the claims made by Shuja left sceptics because they were unsubstantiated.

According to Ray, the president of IJA, Shuja is a “radio frequency engineer Syed Hyder Ahmed (also known as Syed Shuja)”. “Admittedly, the accusations made by Ahmed were very serious; which he could not substantiate. He left a roomful of scribes highly sceptical, if not annoyed,” he said.

But, he added, the documents provided after the event appeared to establish that Shuja was granted asylum in the United States and the basis for that could provide more crucial clues on what he alleged. Why US gave him asylum is an answer that “obviously lies with Washington”, he added.

Deborah Bonetti, FPA director, added in a tweet: “The speaker at yesterday’s event #IJA did not follow up his claims with any proof. He was not credible and should not have been given a platform”.

On Monday, the Congress too had said that it did not vouch for the statements that were made, but believed that the claims needed investigation.

Other political leaders from the opposition supported calls for an investigation. “Why is a country like Japan, which is very advanced in science and technology, not using the EVMs? The question should be raised among the nation’s 130 crore people,” Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav said on Tuesday.

Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati demanded the upcoming Lok Sabha polls be held using ballot papers instead of electronic machines.

The poll panel’s Technical Experts Committee (TEC) members said the basis of some of the allegations itself were incorrect. Shuja said the EVMs could be manipulated through radio waves, but “EVMs used in India are stand-alone machines designed to connect only amongst ECI-EVM units through cables that remain in full public view”, the TEC members said.

“There is no mechanism in ECI-EVMs to communicate with any device through wireless communication on any radio frequency,” the committee added.

First Published: Jan 22, 2019 23:41 IST