Kapil Sibal defends presence at EVM hackathon event in London, says media must verify claims made by Syed Shuja

Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Tuesday held a press conference to defend his presence at the EVM hackathon in London organised by the Indian Journalists Association (IJA) in London. The public event was held on Monday where a hacker named Syed Shuja, who claims to have worked with the Electronics Commission of India (ECIL) in many locations including Hyderabad’s Sanathnagar, made many big allegations including the 2014 general elections being rigged. Sibal said that he was invited by his friend Ashish Ray — who is the president of IJA — to attend the event, for which he said invites were sent to all political parties. Sibal said that he was to do some personal work in the UK on the same day and thus decided to attend the event which promised to make some important revelations as per the email sent out to him by the organisers.

Kapil Sibal, Congress: He (Ashish Ray) sent me a personal e-mail also. I told him that I will be in London for some personal work & he insisted that I should come as they are going to make an important revelation. So I went https://t.co/P3doD1og4S

— ANI (@ANI) January 22, 2019

Sibal also targeted the BJP by saying that one of the party’s leaders decided to approach the media against the claims made in the event and used words he should have, considering his post. He, however, said that he is not sure of the claims made and it is for the media to verify the same. “It is your duty to check these claims backed by facts presented in the emails and the information provided by this gentleman… If what he is saying is even 50 percent true it doesn’t augur well for the democracy, however, if it’s not true he must be dealt with,” Sibal said. “This sounds like is a science fiction story to me… which can be easily verified,”  he added.