Opposition mounts attack on EC, panel rebuts charge

THe oppositeness continued its assail on the Election direction of bharat (ECI) on sat, accusing it of working at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Centre, evoking sharp reactions from the poll panel and ruling party leaders who asked them to give proof of their allegations.Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, who on Friday claimed that his party had uncovered an “atom bomb” of evidence proving voters lists were manipulated on a large scale, reiterated his claims on Saturday, saying he will soon release the data that would send shockwaves through the election system.“You will see the shockwave that is going to go through the electoral system when we release this data. It is literally like an atom bomb,” LoP in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said at the inaugural function of the day-long legal conclave on the theme ‘Constitutional Challenges: Perspectives and Pathways’.Also Read | EC junks Tejashwi Yadav's claim that his name missing from draft electoral rollsGandhi cited data collected by the Congress from an assembly constituency in Karnataka, where the party checked the photographs and names of electors physically and reportedly found out that 150,000 votes were “fake” out of a total of 65,000 voters. “Out of 6.5 lakh voters, we found 1.5 lakh to be fake. It’s all documented; we obtained physical papers from the Election Commission,” he claimed.He added: “The truth is that the election system in India is already dead. Please remember one thing that the prime minister of India enjoys a very slim majority. If 10-15 seats were rigged, and we suspect the actual figures to be closer to 70-80 to 100, he would not have been the prime minister of the country... In the coming few days, we are going to prove to you without any doubt how a Lok Sabha election can be rigged, and it was rigged.”Also Read | Kharge criticises ECI, says poor and minorities ‘deliberately’ excluded in SIRGandhi said he will make public details of the “anomalies” in voter list in the constituency in Karnataka on August 5 at Bengaluru’s Freedom Park.Sharpening his attack on the ECI, the former Congress chief said, “It’s very clear that the institution that protects this (Constitution), and defends it has been obliterated and taken over.”Gandhi also said that he did not have the proof earlier and that is why he could not make such statements before. “But, I am making this statement confidently now because I have 100% proof. And, whoever I have shown it to has fallen off the chair. They literally said how it is possible. But it is possible, it’s happening, literally,” he added.The Congress has repeatedly accused the ECI of acting like a “biased umpire”, particularly in its handling of the 2024 general elections and multiple assembly polls.Later in the day, EC shared Gandhi’s remarks on its official X account, saying: “The statements made are Misleading and Baseless.” On Friday, too, the poll panel had termed the LoP’s “atom bomb” remark “baseless and wild allegations”.The BJP, meanwhile, dared Gandhi to detonate at once the “atom bomb of evidence of vote theft”. “Rahul Gandhi says he is in possession of an atom bomb. If it is so, he should detonate it at once. He should just ensure that he is himself out of harm’s way”, said defence minister and former BJP president Rajnath Singh.Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge alleged that voters were “changed” in the Maharashtra assembly and Lok Sabha elections. “How can there be nine voters in a small room and nine thousand voters in a single hostel in Maharashtra? Is this Election Commission or Modi ji’s puppet,” he asked at the legal conclave on Saturday.Echoing Gandhi’s recent warnings, Kharge asserted that accountability will follow for those in the poll body. “Whether they are serving or retired, ECI officials won’t be spared if they break the rules. They’re in a dangerous position –– lying for the BJP –– and that cannot go on unchecked.”Slamming the contentious special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, Kharge described the exercise as a “deliberate” move to disenfranchise the poor, marginalised and minorities even as he called the ECI a “puppet” to the Narendra Modi-led government.“If 6.5 to 10 million voters are being excluded in a state of 70 million, it’s not an error, it’s a calculated decision to remove the marginalised from the democratic process.”Kharge’s comments come a day after ECI published the draft electoral rolls for poll-bound Bihar after the conclusion of the first phase of the SIR. ECI said of the 6.5 million names missing from the rolls, deaths accounted for 2.2 million, people who permanently shifted or not found accounted for 3.6 million and people enrolled in multiple places accounted for 700,000.The EC did not respond to the latest allegations, but said in a press note that along with the draft rolls, a list of voters who were part of the June 24 electoral roll but are missing from the new draft has been shared with political parties. A total of 1.60 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs), nominated by district presidents of the 12 political parties, are currently participating in the SIR process.The Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha also alleged that Opposition voices, including his own and Gandhi’s, are routinely muffled in Parliament. “Mics are switched off the moment we try to speak,” he said. “Modi and Shah used to cheer when the former Rajya Sabha Chairman expelled us. This is what they call democracy.”(With PTI inputs)