‘Abhi picture baki hai': Rahul Gandhi hints at more evidence of ‘vote theft'
The Congress MP is learnt to have told a meeting of senior party leaders that he has details of irregularities on more than 40 seats and will release the evidence soon.
Last week, Gandhi had held a press conference and said that a team constituted by the party studied poll data from Mahadevapura Assembly segment in Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat, and listed ways in which the election to the seat was 'stolen'. He alleged that the EC had colluded with the BJP in the 'vote theft'.
Sources told The Indian Express that during a meeting of Congress general secretaries and in-charges in Delhi on Tuesday evening, Gandhi said he has similar data for more than 40 seats and will be releasing it soon.
Earlier in the day, Gandhi accused the Election Commission of not performing its duty of enforcing the 'one man, one vote' principle. He said his party was engaged in protecting the Constitution and would continue to do so.
'There is not just one seat (where there is 'vote theft'), there are a number of seats. This is being done at a national level and systematically. The EC knows it and we know it too,' Gandhi told reporters at the Parliament House complex.
'Earlier, evidence was not there but now the evidence is there. We protect the Constitution. 'One man, one vote' is the foundation of the Constitution,' the LoP said.
He said it is the EC's duty to enforce 'one man, one vote' and it has not done that.
Questioned about the controversy over a '124-year-old' voter, Minta Devi, in Bihar, Gandhi said, 'There are unlimited cases like that. Abhi picture baki hai.'
During his press briefing last week, Gandhi had alleged that the 'vote manipulation' did not happen in just one Assembly segment (Mahadevapura), but that there was a pattern. 'We have studied the pattern. We are convinced this crime is being committed at a huge scale across the country in state after state after state,' Gandhi said, adding that this was why exit polls and internal surveys of parties 'go massively wrong'.
'Not giving machine-readable voter lists and disallowing CCTV footage by changing the law convinced us that the EC colluded with the BJP to steal elections,' he said. He also accused the EC of looking to 'destroy' evidence of 'vote theft' across the country.
On Monday, Opposition MPs took out a protest march from the Parliament House to the Election Commission office against the revision of electoral rolls in Bihar and alleged 'vote chori'. They were stopped midway by the police and briefly detained amid high drama.
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