Last Updated:
Rahul Gandhi made a presentation yesterday, alleging voter fraud by the Election Commission to “steal” votes for the BJP in Karnataka.
Rahul Gandhi, ECI spar over “voter fraud” allegations (PTI Image)
The Election Commission of India on Friday responded to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his ‘voter fraud in Karnataka’ allegations and dared him to either sign a formal declaration for his claims or apologise to the nation.
A day ago, Rahul Gandhi held a presentation in the national capital and accused the ECI of “colluding” with the BJP to “steal” over 1 lakh votes in the Mahadevapura assembly segment of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency in last year’s general elections.
Rahul Gandhi’s Allegations
He claimed that a deep analysis by a 40-member team of the Congress party found duplicacies, fake addresses of voters and false pictures, and suspicious Form 6 applications.
“EC was colluding with the BJP to steal elections. This is why they don’t give us machine-readable data,” he alleged.
Rahul Gandhi said his party was ahead in all other assembly areas of Bangalore Central, but the BJP got a big lead of 1.14 lakh votes in Mahadevapura, which helped it win the seat by 32,707 votes.
Election Commission’s Reply
The Election Commission has demanded Rahul Gandhi to either sign the declaration affirming his allegations or apologise to the country for “absurd allegations”.
“If Rahul Gandhi believes in his analysis and believes that his allegations against ECI are true, he should have no problem in signing the Declaration. If Rahul Gandhi does not sign the Declaration, it would mean that he does not believe in his analysis and resultant conclusions and absurd allegations. In which case he should apologise to the nation. Therefore, he has two options: Either sign the Declaration or Apologise to the Nation for raising absurd allegations against ECI,” Election Commission sources said.
The poll body wants the Congress leader to sign the declaration as, it said, he did not sign any letter himself in the past, and any response given by the commission is “disowned” by Rahul Gandhi.
“The reason is that in the past, he has never sent any self-signed letter by himself. Whatever reply we give is to other entities and everytime he disowns it. For example, he raised the Maharashtra issue in Dec 24. Some Advocate writes to us from AICC. Our reply dated 24 Dec 24 is on our website. But Rahul Gandhi says that we have never replied,” the ECI said.
As Rahul Gandhi made the claims yesterday, several state chief electoral officers, including those from Maharashtra, Karnataka, wrote to him, seeking specific names of electors with a signed declaration under Rule 20(3)(b) of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, to initiate action.
“You are kindly requested to sign and return the enclosed declaration/oath… so that necessary proceedings can be initiated,” the Karnataka CEO’s letter said.
Speaking to the reporters today, Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that the allegations levelled by her brother should be investigated.
“Rahul Gandhi has made such a big revelation… if there is any issue or unintentional mistake, it should be investigated. Instead of investigating, they (BJP) are asking for an affidavit. Whatever my brother has said, a day will come when other people will be empowered, and then those who have colluded in this complete destruction of democracy will have to answer for it,” she said.
Ashesh Mallick is a Sub-Editor with over three years of experience in news writing, video production. He primarily covers national news, politics and global affairs. You can follow him on Twitter: @MallickAshes…Read More
Ashesh Mallick is a Sub-Editor with over three years of experience in news writing, video production. He primarily covers national news, politics and global affairs. You can follow him on Twitter: @MallickAshes… Read More
view comments
Read More
