Rahul doubles down on ‘vote theft' charge, seeks Karnataka govt probe; EC hits back
Addressing the Congress's 'Vote Adhikar Rally' at Freedom Park in Bengaluru, Gandhi asked the EC to share the digital voter list of constituencies across India compiled in the last 10 years along with CCTV footage recorded at polling booths in elections during this period.
'Here (in Karnataka), one Lok Sabha seat was stolen. This is a criminal act against the people of the state. The Karnataka government should investigate this and take action,' Gandhi said.
He accused the EC of allegedly including 'thousands of fake voters in the list' and said the issue should be investigated to bring out details of the irregularities in Mahadevapura Assembly segment, which falls within the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat.
Gandhi claimed that 'if the EC doesn't share the electronic voter lists and CCTV footage, they are hiding a crime and are helping the BJP steal elections'.
After claiming that he had an 'atom bomb' of evidence showing the EC had allegedly 'stolen votes' for the BJP, Gandhi on Thursday released the findings of a Congress investigation in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment's voting in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In a presentation to the media at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in Delhi then, he claimed the Congress won other Assembly segments in Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat 'except Mahadevapura' and lost the election by 1,14,046 votes.
'It is a huge imbalance. So we started looking at Mahadevapura, the details. And we found that 1,00,250 votes were stolen,' the LoP then alleged. He
said the Congress's analysis revealed '11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 fake and invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters with the same address, 4,132 invalid photos, and 33,692 instances of Form 6 misuse'.
Reiterating at the Bengaluru rally that the EC should share voter data with the Opposition parties in a digital format along with video records, Gandhi said this would prove the Congress's charge that such 'vote irregularities' did not result in just one seat being 'stolen'. 'Not only in Karnataka, seats were stolen across the country. The EC is not of the BJP. The EC works for the Constitution. In Karnataka, we have investigated one seat. But we are sure that more seats were stolen,' he alleged.
Such 'irregularities', he added, amounted to attacking the foundational idea of 'one person, one vote' in the Constitution.
Gandhi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the PM for the third time with the NDA's 293 Lok Sabha seats after the BJP's tally of 240 seats fell short of the 272-seat majority mark. 'We have shown that one seat was stolen. In 25 (Lok Sabha) seats, they have won by a margin of fewer than 35,000 votes. If we get electronic data, we will show that he became PM because of theft,' he alleged.
The EC, the LoP said, should give all details sought by Opposition parties as soon as possible. 'The data we collected is evidence of crime. It took six months to analyse it. Entire election data is evidence. And if anyone destroys it, then they are destroying the evidence and continuing the crime,' he said.
If the EC refuses to share the data, the Congress will carry out the same exercise in 15 to 20 other seats to expose such 'malpractices', Gandhi said. 'We have paper copies (of voter data). You cannot hide it. One day or another, you will have to face the Opposition. Every officer and the EC should understand this clearly,' he added.
Addressing the rally, Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge also alleged that the BJP-led NDA government was formed due to such 'vote theft'. 'As a result, it has no moral ground or right to continue in power. The Congress is finding out such (electoral) lapses across the country,' he said.
Referring to his first election loss in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Kharge alleged his defeat to the BJP in Gulbarga was due to 'vote fraud'. 'But we did not realise it then. In five constituencies, bogus voting was done,' he alleged.
Rejecting Gandhi's allegations, state BJP president B Y Vijayendra said that the Mahadevapura Assembly segment has always been a bastion of the BJP. Alleging discrepancies in the Chamarajanagar Lok Sabha seat and the Shivajinagar Assembly seat, where minorities are in large numbers, he demanded that the Congress leader 'inspect' what happened in these constituencies.
'Gandhi, who is unable to win the confidence of the people of the country, who is desperately trying to become the PM, is rejected by the people of the country. Unable to tolerate this, he is making such allegations,' Vijayendra said.
After the rally, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar led a Congress delegation to meet the state chief electoral officer (CEO) V Anbukumar to submit a petition, adding that the party will share more information on its investigation in the coming days. 'We know that an election petition cannot be filed now as it is too late. But what is wrong in the system has to be addressed,' said Shivakumar, who is also the state Congress president.
Referring to Gandhi's demand for machine readable voter lists, the EC said on X that the Congress's plea for it had been rejected by the Supreme Court in 2019. It added that Gandhi had never 'personally sent a self-signed letter' to the EC and reiterated its position that he should submit claims and objections against specific voters and sign the declaration as per rules. 'Either sign the declaration on issues you have raised in the press conference which you believe is true or else apologise to the nation,' the EC stated.
On his part, Gandhi has maintained that he has taken the oath as an MP in Parliament holding the Constitution.
The poll body also rejected the allegation that electoral rolls were not available, sharing a link for downloading them.
With inputs from Damini Nath
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