Hardik Patel: 140 software engineers have been hired to tamper EVM

Gujarat, Dec 17: Hardik Patel's allegation that 140 software engineers have been hired to tamper with 5000 electronic voting machines (EVMs) are baseless, the Ahmedabad Collector Avantika Singh said on Sunday. "These are baseless allegations. I don't think any clarification is needed. Even if any clarification is to be issued, it will be issued by EC," she said.

Two days before the counting of votes for the Gujarat Assembly Elections 2017, the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) leader Hardik Patel on Saturday had tweeted, "Ahmedabad ki ek company ke dwara 140 software engineers ke haathon se 5000 EVMs ke source card se hacking karne ki tayari (A company in Ahmedabad has prepared to hack the source code of 5000 EVMs through 140 engineers)."

Patel again took to Twitter on Sunday, after his allegations were termed baseless by the Ahmedabad Collector, and urged the social media to not just laugh off the matter. "Meri baaton pe sirf hansi aayegi lekin vichar koi nahi karega. Bhagwan dwara banaye humare shareer ke saath chedhchhadh ho sakti hai to maanav ke dwara banayi gayi EVM machine mein kyun chedhchhadh nahi ho sakti!! ATM hack ho sakte hain to EVM kyun nahi (If human bodies, made by the God can be hacked then why can't the EVMs created by humans. ATMs can be hacked and so can EVMs," Patel tweeted on Sunday.