A widely circulated video of a purported news broadcast claims that the chief election commissioner of India has announced an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) hacking challenge for the political parties in India.
The Facebook user shared the video with a caption, “इलेक्शन कमीशन ने EVM को "हेक" करने कि "चुनौती" दे दी है। चमचै, दरबारी, दल्ले, नल्ले और चरणचुंबक पत्रकारो इस बार "मौका" हाथ से जाने मत देना। EVM को "हेक" करके दिखाओ, बाद में रोना नही | (The Election Commission has given a ‘challenge’ to hack the EVM. Sycophants, bureaucrats, brokers, fools, and journalists, don’t miss this ‘opportunity’ this time. Show hacking the EVM now or don’t cry later.)”
In the video, a person who can be identified as Nasim Zaidi, a former chief election commissioner of India, from the name card in front of them, announces that the Election Commission of India has challenged the political parties to hack the EVM by June 3.
SouthCheck found the video is old and is being shared out of context.
We first searched for Nasim Zaidi and found his profile on the ECI website. His profile said that he was India’s former chief election commissioner from 2015 to 2017.
Taking the clue, we searched with appropriate keywords and found a similar video of Nasim Zaidi, shared by India TV on its YouTube channel on May 20, 2017. In the video, we found him challenging the political parties to hack the EVM on June 3.
We also find a report by The Times of India, published on May 20, 2017. The report read, “After opposition allegations over the last month that electronic voting machines (EVMs) were tampered with during recent state polls, the chief election commissioner (CEC) Nasim Zaidi, said today ‘no proof has been submitted’ by the complainants.” He also added that the Election Commission will hold its electronic voting machine (EVM) hacking challenge starting June 3, when parties can also come with their IT experts to test them out.
While we could not find the video of Aaj Tak news broadcast clip shown in the viral video, based on the above incidents, it is clear that the viral video is old and is being shared out of context.
