'Provide relevant documents': Karnataka chief poll officer sends notice to Rahul Gandhi; seeks proof for 'vote chori' claims
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Rahul Gandhi has been asked to provide evidence on which he based his claim that a voter named Shakun Rani (or anyone else) voted twice.
"You are kindly requested to provide the relevant documents on the basis of which you have concluded that Shakun Rani or anyone else has voted twice, so that a detailed inquiry can be undertaken by this office," the CEO's notice said.
The move comes after Rahul's press conference in New Delhi on August 7, where he alleged large-scale "vote chori" (vote theft) in Karnataka's Mahadevapura assembly segment, claiming over 1 lakh votes were "stolen" through methods such as duplicate entries, fake addresses, and bulk registrations at single addresses.
"Our internal polling predicted 16 Lok Sabha seats for Congress in Karnataka; we won nine. In Mahadevapura alone, we found 100,250 votes stolen in five different ways," Gandhi had said, presenting what he called Congress's internal analysis of voting patterns.
Reiterating his charges on Sunday, Rahul posted on X that "vote chori is an attack on the foundational idea of 'one man, one vote',' adding that a clean voter roll was essential for free and fair elections.
He urged the Election Commission (EC) to 'release digital voter rolls so that people and parties can audit them.'
The Election Commission has a day earlier asked Rahul to either submit a formal declaration as per rules or apologise to the country for making 'false' allegations.
Meanwhile, the Congress party is preparing to escalate the issue nationally. The party will hold a strategy meeting on August 11 at its headquarters in New Delhi, chaired by party president Mallikarjun Kharge, to plan a campaign against 'voter list manipulation and election fraud.'
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Congress general secretary KC Venugopal, invoking Mahatma Gandhi's Quit India call, described it as a 'do-or-die mission' to save Indian democracy. The party has also announced opposition to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, along with its INDIA bloc partners.
The political confrontation over voter lists shows no sign of slowing, with both the EC and the Congress digging in their heels ahead of the next election cycle.
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