‘Vote Chori’: Rahul questions EC’s role in electoral manipulation

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Thursday leveled serious allegations of electoral manipulation against the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claiming that since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the poll panel colluded with the BJP to steal elections.

Citing discrepancies in voter lists and sudden spikes in voting patterns to drive his point, Gandhi, who is also the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha alleged that the prime minister needed to ‘steal’ only 25 seats to stay in power in 2024 and the BJP won 25 seats with margin less than 33,000 votes during the Lok Sabha polls.

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The Congress MP, who also made a presentation to drive his charges, alleged that over 1 crore new voters were added to electoral rolls in Maharashtra within just five months, a sudden spike that raises questions about the legitimacy of the electoral process.

Questioning EC’s decision to destroy CCTV footage from polling booths in Maharashtra, suggesting that this was done to conceal evidence of electoral manipulation, the Opposition leader claimed that his research team found large numbers of duplicate voters, invalid addresses, and bulk entries in the Mahadevapura Assembly constituency in Karnataka, where over 1 lakh votes were allegedly cast fraudulently.

“The Maharashtra results confirmed our suspicion that the assembly election was stolen………..The Election Commission refusing to provide a machine-readable voter list convinced us of its collusion with the BJP,” he claimed.

“Anti-incumbency hits every single party in every single democracy. But for some reason, the BJP is the only party in a democratic framework that basically does not suffer this idea of anti-incumbency,” he pointed out.

While the election commission is yet to respond to Rahul Gandhi’s allegations, his claims have sparked concerns about the credibility of the electoral process in India.