'Tired script': Election Commission blasts Rahul Gandhi's 'vote theft' claim; recalls Kamal Nath case of 2018
Rahul Gandhi
over his allegations of large-scale voter fraud, accusing him of repeating an old political 'script' and challenging him to either formally verify his claims or apologise to the nation.
In a statement on Friday, the poll body claimed the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha had raised 'baseless' charges similar to those made in 2018 by then Madhya Pradesh Congress chief
Kamal Nath
, which were dismissed by the Supreme Court.
'Rahul Gandhi repeated a tired script': EC
'At his recent press conference, Rahul Gandhi repeated a tired script. In 2018, it was then Kamal Nath, the then President MPCC; today, it's the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha playing the same tune,' the ECI said.
According to EC, in 2018, Congress leaders had attempted to mislead the court by producing documents from a private website to claim errors in electoral rolls, including instances where 'the same face was shown again for as many as 36 voters'.
The ECI said those defects had been rectified months earlier and shared with the party. 'The Court refused to accept the prayer of Kamal Nath. Now, in 2025, they, being aware that the same trick cannot be played in the Court, tried to mislead the people by claiming irregularities in the electoral rolls,' it added.
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'Oppn leader tried to sensationalise issue': EC
The Commission also cited a specific case involving the name of Aditya Srivastava, which Rahul Gandhi had claimed appeared in three different states. 'In fact… was rectified months ago,' it said. It further reminded the Congress leader that the Kamal Nath judgment had 'settled' the position on machine-readable electoral rolls, and accused him of disregarding the Supreme Court's decisions.
'Law provides a specific procedure for both making objections to the roll and for making appeal.
Instead of availing the legal processes, he tried to sensationalise the issue by making baseless claims in media,' the statement said. 'If Rahul Gandhi believes in his analysis and believes that his allegations against ECI are true, he should have respect for law and sign the Declaration or Apologise to the Nation for raising absurd allegations against ECI.
'
EC vs Rahul Gandhi
The standoff follows letters from the chief electoral officers (CEOs) of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Haryana asking Gandhi to submit the names of voters he believes were wrongly included or removed, along with a signed oath under Rule 20(3)(b) of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
The Karnataka CEO reminded him that rolls are prepared transparently under the Representation of the People Act, while Maharashtra and Haryana officials noted that Congress had not filed any formal appeals over alleged discrepancies.
On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi had alleged 'vote chori' in a Karnataka constituency involving 1,00,250 votes and irregularities in the rolls. Dismissing the Commission's demand for a signed declaration, he said, 'I am a politician, what I say to the people is my word.
I am saying it to the people publicly, take it as an oath. Interestingly, they haven't denied the information.' He accused the ECI of colluding with the BJP to 'undermine democracy' and warned polling officials allegedly involved of consequences if the Opposition came to power.
He also claimed that EC was 'destroying evidence' by limiting the preservation of CCTV and webcasting footage to 45 days unless election results were legally challenged.
'It is the 21st century, you can keep as much data as you want in a hard drive, even 10 years old data, but the Election Commission wants to destroy the CCTV footage in 45 days,' he said.
The poll body earlier said Gandhi had failed to respond to its June 12 letter inviting him to substantiate earlier claims of 'rigging' in the Maharashtra Assembly elections. 'Why? Is it because his media statements were baseless?' EC sources told PTI.
Gandhi has warned that such alleged irregularities could be repeated in the upcoming
Bihar elections
.
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