Sipu Jha
Rahul Gandhi
NEW DELHI: Leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday raised sharp questions over the fairness of recent elections, alleging large-scale “voter fraud” and accusing the Election Commission of bias. He also claimed, “Election Commission colluded with BJP to steal elections in Maharashtra.”Speaking at a press briefing, Rahul referred to the recent polling in Maharashtra, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh. He said the results in Maharashtra confirmed the INDIA bloc’s suspicion of electoral malpractice.Also Read | EC vs Rahul Gandhi: Submit declaration on ‘vote chori’ claim, poll body writes to Congress MP; asks for proof
Here are the key allegations made by Rahul Gandhi-
- “Maharashtra results confirmed our suspicion that assembly election was ‘stolen’,” he said, pointing to possible
voter list manipulation and a lack of transparency in the process.
- “The number of new voters even exceeded the population of Maharashtra, a very surprising fact. Then there was a huge spike in voter turnout after 5:30pm, and everyone saw it.”
- “The Election Commission doesn’t give us electronic data. Because they don’t want us to look carefully.”
- “The Election Commission gave us electronic data, it would take us 30 seconds. I repeat, this is why we are being given data like this, so that it is not analysed. These papers do not allow for optical character recognition. So if you scan them, you can’t get the data out of them.”
- “Why is the election commission protecting these pieces of paper? EC deliberately provides non-machine-readable papers.”
- Rahul alleged that in Maharashtra, “one crore new voters” appeared on the rolls between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. He said that when the INDIA bloc raised the issue with the Election Commission, there was no response.
- “Not just the Karnataka information, but every single voter list in the country, this is evidence. This is a crime being committed against the Indian Constitution and the Indian flag.”
- “Out of 6.5 lakh votes in Mahadevapura assembly seat in Karnataka, there was ‘vote chori’ of over 1 lakh votes.”
- “Congress research found over one lakh duplicate voters, invalid addresses, bulk voters in Mahadevapura constituency in Karnataka.”
- “We are absolutely convinced that this crime is being done on a huge scale across the country, in state after state after state.”
- “The CCTV footage and the voter list are now evidence of a crime. And the Election Commission is busy trying to destroy it.”
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