Rahul Gandhi fires fresh salvo at EC, poll panel rebuts

THe face-off betwixt Leader of the oppositeness in the Lok Sabha Rahul indira gandhi and the Election direction of bharat (ECI) intensified on Friday after the Congress leader rejected demands for a sworn affidavit on his charges of voter fraud in Karnataka and poll officials called the allegations absurd.Gandhi on Thursday alleged that 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 ECI of “colluding” with the ruling party.His presentation, which also included names of the voters involved, had prompted an immediate reaction from ECI, which had asked him to send a signed declaration and oath to the effect.On Friday, Gandhi dismissed the demand, saying he had already taken an oath on the Constitution in Parliament. He also reiterated his allegations about voter fraud in Maharashtra.Addressing the ‘Vote Adhikar Rally’ in Bengaluru, Gandhi alleged that ECI and BJP had worked together to manipulate voter rolls and hide evidence of large-scale irregularities in the 2024 elections.“The Election Commission is asking me to submit an affidavit and give information under oath. But I have already taken an oath inside Parliament while holding the Constitution,” Gandhi told the crowd, accusing the poll body of withholding crucial records, including booth-level videography and electronic voter lists. He said these records were deliberately kept from scrutiny to cover up wrongdoing.“The EC and BJP together have stolen the Lok Sabha from Karnataka,” he alleged. He said repeated requests for polling booth videos and electronic rolls were rejected and that the law was later amended to require videos be erased after 45 days.Gandhi linked his allegations to an internal Congress survey that had predicted the party would win 16 of the state’s 28 Lok Sabha seats. The party won just nine. Gandhi listed five ways in which the alleged fraud took place: Creation of duplicate voters, fake or invalid addresses, bulk registrations at single addresses, unclear photographs, and misuse of Form 6 meant for first-time voters.In Delhi, the BJP mocked Gandhi’s allegations. Union minister Bhupender Yadav accused Gandhi of using threatening language unbecoming of the Leader of Opposition. “Those who keep raising questions about Maharashtra are the very ones -- Congress and its allies -- who won most of the seats where voter numbers increased. This alone discredits Rahul Gandhi’s theory.”“It was like the case of someone cutting the branch he is sitting on,” he said, accusing Gandhi of using arrogant and threatening language against ECI.Poll officials challenged Gandhi to either sign a formal declaration affirming his claims or apologise to the country.“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,” a senior ECI official said. “If he 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.”ECI also dismissed circulating claims that voter rolls from multiple states were taken down from its websites. “Electoral rolls of all 36 states and Union Territories continue to be available for download on voters.eci.gov.in,” ECI said. Officials acknowledged that a few state websites had faced temporary outages but attributed these to routine technical issues. “States control their own servers so sometimes the websites are down. It is a normal thing, but we checked and got them restored immediately,” a SECOND? official added.In his presser on Thursday, Gandhi had 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 the Mahadevapura segment. 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.In Bengaluru on Friday, Gandhi demanded that ECI release electronic voter lists and polling-day videography for the past decade across the country, claiming such disclosure would reveal “the Prime Minister of India became PM by stealing votes.” Gandhi called the alleged manipulation “a criminal act against the people of Karnataka” and urged the state government to investigate ECI officials who, he alleged, inserted thousands of fake names into the rolls.Gandhi also alleged that a similar pattern had occurred in Maharashtra, where the BJP won the assembly elections just four months after the Lok Sabha polls. “We discovered that 1 crore new voters, who had not participated in the Lok Sabha polls, cast their votes in the Maharashtra assembly election,” he said, adding that these votes “primarily went to the BJP,” and that “wherever these new voters cast their ballots, the BJP won.”Chief minister Siddaramaiah echoed Gandhi’s charges, demanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s resignation. Deputy CM DK Shivakumar said Gandhi wanted ‘legal banks’ to be established to protect voters’ rights at the booth level, assuring that such a mechanism would be set up on the lines of blood banks.BJP state president B.Y. Vijayendra dismissed the allegations, calling Gandhi a “desperate leader” who had failed to earn the public’s trust.