General Elections 2024 (GE 2024) results were expected to produce highly divergent results depending upon who you chose to back or believe - these targeted tallies were 400+ by the ruling side versus ~300 by the opposition side. Therefore, if at all any side were to achieve their predicted tally, the other side was expected to cry foul and immediately try to seek redress through the available legal recourse – either file for Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) audit, within seven days, or else file petitions in the Supreme Court of India (SCI) or a lower Court within 45 days. According to a press report, only 10 losing contestants have demanded EVM audit, including one from Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP).
There is enough circumstantial evidence that points to a con game the BJP team led by PM Modi and HM Amit Shah pulled off and, made suckers out of Opposition. The Opposition parties could have changed their fate had they joined the petitions civil rights groups and NGOs had filed against EVM - read what M.G. Devasahayam says about the stolen mandate. It is likely, the Opposition parties will suffer the same fate of losing elections in future if they fail to force Election Commission of India (ECI), through a review petition in the Supreme Court of India (SCI), to change the process of using EVMs.
Narrative ("400 par") - was part of a con game - cover fire for EVM hacking
The ruling BJP, led by Modi, had run an “intimidating” narrative that it would by itself win 370 out of 543 seats and together with its partners, in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), their tally would be 400+ seats (“abki bar 400 par” : 3 min clip). Indian National Congress (INC) with mass contact yatras, led by Rahul Gandhi, across the country - south to north and east to west, had picked up a far more accurate pulse of the voters, their leaders declared INC would win 100+ seats and together with its alliance partners in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc, they would easily cross the majority tally of 272 seats and end Modi’s rule. Rahul Gandhi proclaimed that he would write down that Narendra Modi will not return as the PM: clip of 30 secs
The results announced on 4th June were a stunning blow to BJP (it lost 63 seats compared to its 2019 tally) and they were just a little shy of a home run for INC (it doubled its seats compared to 2019 tally despite contesting far fewer seats). BJP/NDA tally was 240/292 seats. INC/INDIA tally was 99/234. The independents and unaffiliated parties won 17 seats to make up the total of 543 seats of Lok Sabha. Both sides claimed victory, though BJP fell far short of its target. So, no losing contestant charged the winner of fraud. INDIA bloc members, particularly INC, ought to have risen in protests and charged BJP for engineering results quite contrary to its own estimates; BJP's tally was significantly higher than sub-200 tally many independent observers and opposition party members had predicted. INDIA being 38 short of the majority tally, had missed its most important goal of dislodging BJP from power. INDIA bloc parties did not immediately accuse BJP of hacking because being 130 seats short of its target of 370, BJP seemingly had a sufficient alibi - had BJP hacked the EVM System, why would they be so short of their target?
The expectations of INDIA bloc were cleverly tamped down through atmospherics that Modi and team created otherwise they would have likely charged the ruling side of the fraud of carrying out a fiddle with the EVM or of a conspiracy with ECI in ballot stuffing (one example: stonewalling sharing of Form 17C with public).
Ploys of distraction and misdirection
Many believe PM, Modi & Home Minister, Amit Shah (also known as Modi-Shah duo) are masters of electoral strategies and aces in the art of distraction and misdirection. Most ground reports filed by independent journalists and observers predicted big losses for BJP. Modi-Shah duo must be getting all State agencies’ intelligence reports besides their own Party’s surveys about the mood of voters and the likely grim election outcomes. Is it possible that Modi-Shah strategized to ensure their victory through EVM hacking and provide a cover through engineered atmospherics? Let us unpack this ingenious plot.
Door for EVM hacking is left open; Civil Rights groups and Opposition must act to close it
There should have been much more disquiet among the Opposition parties than was seen, when on 26th April, the SCI dismissed ADR’s and two other tagged petitions (none was a political party) against the manner of usage of EVMs. The petitioners wanted two voting process changes that could satisfy the voters at a very basic level. Petitioners had explained how the EVM system was hackable; and how these hacks could be foiled by the two simple process changes they prayed for. The extant rules of secrecy ECI has defined are such that it is almost impossible to provide evidence of hacking or a demo of a possible hack with real EVMs. ECI rejected the Petitioners’ suggestions and sadly SCI, siding with the ECI, dismissed the petitions and instead issued directions for post-result audits to ECI. The audits envisaged by SCI were technically absurd and untrustworthy. The time window for losing contestants to request for EVM audits expired on 11th June. The stands ECI and SCI took, left the door open for the elections to be subverted through the gaming of EVMs – ECI and SCI imperiled India’s democracy.
Discrepancies in votes cast, as published on ECI’s website, were not acknowledged by ECI - neither in the past nor in the GE 2024 (also watch here, here and here). In view of the foregoing, it is imperative that opposition parties as well as civil society unite and mount a concerted challenge in the SCI to upturn the 26th April Judgement of the two-judge bench. SCI had delayed hearing the petitions so much that there was no time left to file a review petition, however, now this must be done, and opposition parties must boycott the usage of EVM unless the two process changes demanded earlier are accepted and implemented by ECI.
“400 par” was a distraction and Stock Market and Exit Poll “scam” a misdirection?
There was a low voter turn-out right from the first phase, in the 7-phase election, which was another indicator. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the narrative of 400 seats Modi flogged till the end was false and set with an ulterior motive.
This false narrative of “400 par” required to be reinforced. This was done through two methods - scripted multiple Exit Polls and hyping the imminent boom in Stock Market.
On 1st June when polling concluded, all Exit Polls made unanimous predictions of a land-slide victory for BJP. All pollsters projected BJP tally of 350 to 400. It is highly improbable that multiple pollsters make the same mistake at the same time. It became strikingly obvious the Exit Polls were scripted by a central source.
In the weeks preceding the election results, the PM, HM, Finance Minister and External Affairs Minister, gave unsolicited (and illegal) advice to investors. All four top leaders of BJP gave public advice, which was none of their business (only Securities Exchange Board of India [SEBI] licensed advisers can do so), to buy stocks before 4th June. They misled the retail investors by telling them the stock prices will sharply go up. The tip shared with the entities of interest to Modi or BJP donors was opposite in nature (based on truth about the expected results). The retail investors followed Modi and his team’s advice and lost money whereas the favoured entities followed the honest advice and booked profits. When sub-par results are declared, the market crash was predictable and that is exactly what happened; in one day Rs.30 lac crores (Rs. 30 trillion) market cap meltdown occurred on 4th-5th June. This is a classic example of insider trading which is a criminal offense. Rahul Gandhi has asked for the appointment of Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to investigate this “Exit Poll scam”. A petition has been filed in SCI asking that Government and SEBI be ordered to investigate the charge of insider trading and fix the responsibility. Praveen Chakravarty of INC in an interview with Karan Thapar on The Wire explained the curious stocks transactions and Exit Poll timings. It is possible that Modi-Shah used the Stock Market hype to make money for BJP in conspiracy with some known entities, but the primary purpose must have been to create atmospherics in which BJP’s victory would appear to be sub-par to the Opposition and, therefore, acceptable.
Motivations for the plot of EVM hack
Having come thus far, it is time to explain the motivations underlying the above plot Modi-Shah likely enacted. For them losing was not an option because the adversaries they had created over the ten-year rule at the Centre would be a source of serious discomfort for them if at all they got to form the Government. Either BJP would need to hack certain numbers of EVMs to ensure victory or risk losing too many constituencies then resort to EVM audits and generate false positives through subterfuge to establish hacking has happened when none has happened. Modi-Shah could easily get ECI to countermand the elections – in the constituencies or even the entire 2024 General Election.
Now it is known that Modi-Shah did not choose the audit route to stay in power, instead the EVM hacking route was chosen. The constraints in EVM hacking were the capacity to safely subvert either the ECI or District Election Officers/Returning Officers in charge of target constituencies and the method used for hacking. According to certain political observers, without EVM manipulations, BJP would have likely won 180-200 seats only. Assuming this to be also the input received by Modi-Shah, BJP’s hacking would be required in about 100 constituencies, however, due to capacity constraints, it was likely planned / done only in 30 – 60 constituencies. Since Modi-Shah were still not sure of hitting the target of 272, they pulled out all stoppers and Modi conducted a campaign that was unprecedented in vitriol and intensity - Modi gave 80 scripted interviews to media houses, conducted 206 public rallies and road shows, his campaign ran over 76 days, he traveled across the country and gave hate speeches and told lies about INC's manifesto unfettered by the Model Code of Conduct as ECI played along.
The only explanation for Modi's over the top and shrill speeches, of the type a man gone berserk would make (Modi claimed he is non-biological, he told voters in rallies that INC intends to steal your wealth, buffaloes and "mangal sutra" to give away to Muslims), is that Modi was thrown off balance with the inputs he must have received of the worst case scenario of winning only 180 seats and also the inputs from his hacking partners of the maximum number of EVMs that could be gamed safely and, still not reaching the required tally of 272. For making up the deficit, BJP needed to swing additional voters but Modi's vicious campaign, though fueled with unlimited funds, backfired. Hindus saw through the charade and Muslims were undoubtedly spooked. The real issues came to the fore, and Modi Government's track record and Modi guarantees could not sway the voters, especially in States that mattered most.
Securing the future of Indian democracy - it is essential to change few processes and rules - it is not necessary to discard EVMs
PM Modi mocked the Opposition parties’ silence over EVM, post 4th June results – his jibe was whether opposition thought EVM was dead or alive, he expressed hope that at least for the next five years no one will oppose EVMs. This was his finesse (aka Masterstroke) in concluding the saga of EVMs which Modi-Shah will continue to exploit unless, as already mentioned, Opposition parties join the efforts of civil rights groups and NGOs to save subversion of electoral democracy.
Opposition parties and citizens must make SCI upturn the April 26th Judgment and also the May 24th Judgment (interim order) refusing the petition ADR had filed praying for ECI to publish Form 17C-Part I which the Presiding Officer and Polling Agents file from each booth, on its website soon after polling closed in each constituency.
It is unfortunate that despite India having an excellent Digital Public Infrastructure, no one is talking about introducing a hybrid-online system; in the meanwhile we are stuck with a totally obsolete and hackable EVM system which has been hyped up as invincible and the "Gold Standard".
