Over 100K votes ‘stolen’: Rahul; EC demands signed declaration

LEader of the oppositeness in the Lok Sabha Rahul mrs. Gandhi on th made a introduction that he claimed proven there were 100,250 “stolen” votes in the Mahadevapura assembly segment of Bangalore (Central) Parliamentary constituency that helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win the seat in 2024, accusing the Election Commission of India of “colluding” with the ruling party.His presentation, which also included names of the voters involved, prompted an immediate reaction from the Election Commission, which asked him to send a signed declaration and oath to the effect.Claiming that a team of 40 people spent six months going through the physical electoral rolls given by the Commission that were seven feet thick in all, and presented in a non machine-readable format, Gandhi provided a break-up of the “stolen” votes: 11, 965 duplicate voters, 40,009 voters with fake and invalid address, 10,452 voters who were part of groups of 60 or 70 voters with the same address; 4,132 voters with invalid photos; and 3, 692 voters who used Form 6. The last is primarily meant for new and first-time voters who do not find their names on the rolls, but Gandhi claimed many of those using this form were 95, 96, and 98 years old.In 2024, the BJP won the Bangalore Central seat by 32,707 votes. Gandhi claimed that while in all other assembly segments of the Lok Sabha constituency, the Congress maintained a lead, it lost the seat as the BJP managed a lead of 114,000 votes in Mahadevapura segment.Gandhi lashed out at the apex poll body and said, “EC was colluding with the BJP to steal elections. In one assembly segment, 100,250-vote theft took place. This is the reason why EC doesn’t give us data machine-readable data.”The presentation came ahead of the Congress’ rally on the issue in Karnataka. Gandhi claimed that the BJP won the 2024 election narrowly. The Prime Minister is the PM with a slender majority and needed to “steal” only 25 seats to stay in power, he added.The BJP won 240 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to the opposition INDIA bloc’s 234; it formed the government with the support of its allies such as the Janata Dal (United), Telugu Desam Party, and Shiv Sena.While his press conference was on, the chief electoral officer in Karnataka sent a letter to Gandhi and sought his signed declaration and oath on the data. Gandhi retorted, “I am a politician. What I say to people is my word. Take it as an oath. EC is not denying the data. They are saying, will you say this under oath.”Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, says, “If any person makes in connection with— (a) the preparation, revision or correction of an electoral roll, or (b) the inclusion or exclusion of any entry in or from an electoral roll, a statement or declaration in writing which is false and which he either knows or believes to be false or does not believe to be true, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.”The BJP hit out at Gandhi, accusing him of making “irresponsible and shameless comments” and attacking the constitutional institutions under a larger conspiracy against India’s democracy and Constitution.“The ideologically hollow Congress party is systematically attacking constitutional institutions. It cannot be ruled out that there is a larger conspiracy against India’s democracy and Constitution behind this calculated deceit,” Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said in a post on X.Former Union minister and senior BJP lawmaker Ravi Shankar Prasad said the former Congress chief has crossed all limits of “shamelessness” by calling EC a fraud.“He is making embarrassing comments against a constitutional body. We condemn it. This is Rahul Gandhi’s anger as the public of the nation does not vote for him,” he told reporters. “Rahul Gandhi has crossed all limits of shamelessness...PM Modi has been winning elections since 2014, and he claims that the results were fraudulent. What do you mean by it? You are disrespecting the public of the nation.”In the course of a 72-minute presentation, Gandhi claimed his party’s analysis had unearthed four ways in which votes were being stolen.One, he claimed, there were people who were enrolled in multiple booths. In Mahadevapura, according to his presentation, a man named Gurkeerat Singh Dang was enrolled in four different polling booths. Gandhi claimed there were similar instances in other constituencies in the state and in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.Two, Gandhi claimed, people used fake addresses. His presentation highlighted 40,000 cases where he said fake addresses were given: either the house number did not exist or the house number is not given at all.Three, he claimed, there were too many voters living in the same house. His presentation showed that in booth number 470, 80 people lived in house number 45 and in booth 366, 46 voters shared same address in a house numbered 791. “68 voters were in a brewery: ‘House no.153 beer club’,” Gandhi quipped.Finally, he claimed, there was a misuse of Form 6.Soon after Gandhi’s allegations, the chief electoral officers (CEOs) of Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Haryana asked the Congress leader to share names of electors he claimed were “wrong” in the voters’ list along with a signed declaration for poll authorities to initiate “necessary proceedings” in the matter.The Karnataka CEO in a letter to Gandhi said: “You are kindly requested to sign and return the enclosed declaration/oath under Rule 20(3)(b) of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, along with the name(s) of such elector(s) so that necessary proceedings can be initiated.”In largely similar worded letters, the Maharashtra and Haryana CEOs told Gandhi that his party did not file any appeal or second appeal before poll authorities claiming flaws in the voters’ list.Responding to Gandhi’s claim about duplicate voter entries across states, the CEO of Uttar Pradesh said that names flagged by the Congress leader were not found in the state’s electoral rolls. “...we searched for the names of Aditya Srivastava and Vishal Singh on voters.eci.gov.in,” the CEO said in a statement, adding that while both names appear in the Mahadevpura assembly seat of Bangalore Urban, “the names of the above voters are not mentioned in Legislative Assembly 173 Lucknow East and Legislative Assembly 390 Varanasi Cantt of Uttar Pradesh.”The Congress’ claims are set to escalate the tussle between the Opposition and EC amid the controversy surrounding the special intensive revision (SIR) of voter list in poll-bound Bihar.The Congress leader hinted that the party might take the issue to the Supreme Court. He also threatened that EC officials will not be spared if the Opposition comes to power. “We are saying, if the EC now doesn’t give us electronic voter data of last 10-15 years, they are partaking in the crime.”“I think judiciary needs to get involved with this,” Gandhi added.Condemning Gandhi’s remarks, BJP lawmaker Sambit Patra accused him of “selective outrage” over his recent allegations against EC.“Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party never did any press conference on those states where they won the election...The public of the nation is seeing this selective outrage...If the Election Commission of India is compromised, as he says, then how can they celebrate their victory on 99 seats in the Lok Sabha elections...This is the peak of Rahul Gandhi’s frustration,” Patra told reporters.BJP MP from Bangalore Central PC Mohan termed Gandhi’s allegations “just another drama”. “Rahul Gandhi drops an atom bomb of allegations, but still can’t produce a single explosive proof. If 100,250 votes were stolen in Mahadevapura, why wasn’t a case filed in court within 45 days instead of holding a press conference one year later?” he said on X.(With inputs from Vrinda Tulsian and Smriti Kak Ramachandran)