A post accompanying an image of a newspaper clipping reported former Chief Election Commissioner T.S.Krishnamurthy’s comments which read ‘BJP won Gujarat & Himachal elections by hacking EVM’s’. Through this article let’s fact-check the veracity of the news.
Claim: ‘BJP won Gujarat & Himachal elections by hacking EVM’s’- Former CEC Krishnamurthy.
Fact: Election Commission of India through a circular stated that former CEC Krishnamurthy has denied the claim when the news first went viral back in 2017. Further, the circular reported that the former CEC has now once again reiterated that the news attributed to him is false. As per the circular, an FIR has been filed and an investigation has been initiated in relation to the spread of this fake news. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Google search with relevant keywords led us to a circular dated 11 March 2021 by the Election Commission of India stating that ‘an FIR has been lodged against the fake news about EVM Hacking attributed to Former CEC Sh. T.S. Krishnamurthy circulated over the internet’. As per the circular, the news article which reported the purported statements by former CEC saying that a particular party won assembly elections by hacking EVMs had first appeared in a Hindi newspaper dated 21 December 2017, and the news was debunked by the former CEC himself when the issue came to his notice back in 2018.
According to the latest circular of the ECI, the former CEC has once again issued a statement regarding the recirculation of the old fake news in which he stated that the news is false and has also categorically stated that EVMs are most credible and that he has no doubt about its efficacy and reliability. Also, a 2019 news report in which former CEC Krishnamurthy can be heard condemning EVM hacking theory when an individual claimed that he hacked the EVM can be seen here.
Further search yielded multiple news articles which reported the circular by ECI. News articles in The Hindu and Outlook regarding the same can be read here and here. Search with relevant keywords on Facebook yielded multiple old posts which shared the same news. A couple of posts that shared the same news back in 2017 & 2018 can be seen here and here. All these establish that the news is false and not true.
In view of the upcoming assembly general elections in the five states, posts like these are being shared on social media platforms with misleading claims.
To sum it up, old news about EVM hacking that was falsely attributed to former CEC Krishnamurthy is revived again.
