Banners outside EC office

NEW DELHI: Taking forward Rahul Gandhi’s “vote chori” charge against the Election Commission (EC), the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) on Wednesday put up banners reading “vote chor commission” outside the poll body’s office in Delhi, stepping up its protest against the EC and the BJP over alleged vote theft. According to an official statement, Delhi Pradesh Youth Congress president Akshay Lakra, along with party workers, hung the banners outside the EC headquarters and at the Gol Dak Khana intersection in the national capital.“The BJP is always ahead in changing names, so today, when democracy is being murdered in the country, we have changed the name of the Election Commission and put up banners of ‘vote chor commission’,” Lakra said. Calling the right to vote the “voice of the people in democracy,” Lakra accused the EC and BJP of “suppressing” that right. He vowed that the IYC would continue its agitation under the leadership of Congress MP and Lok Sabha leader of opposition Gandhi “against vote theft” until the EC provides a digital voter list.The protest came a day after it held a “Halla Bol” march against what it described as a conspiracy of “vote chori” and “weakening democracy.”On August 7, Rahul Gandhi unveiled what he had been calling an “atom bomb” of evidence against the Election Commission, citing data analysis from the Mahadevapura assembly segment in the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha seat — in Congress-ruled Karnataka — to allege that the poll body and the BJP had “colluded” to steal votes. The EC rejected the charge and asked him to sign a declaration to formalise it as a complaint. Gandhi refused, saying he had already taken an oath on the Constitution.