Congress senior leader Rahul Gandhi strongly criticized the Election Commission of India (ECI). He stated that the election results of Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra further strengthened their suspicions. Just as he had mentioned a few days ago, Rahul presented several points before the media with solid evidence related to electoral irregularities. He clarified that whatever he is saying is purely based on the Election Commission's data and not his own. He challenged that if what he is saying is wrong, it should be specifically pointed out. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi held a press conference in Delhi and alleged that the ruling party and the Election Commission together are mocking the country’s democracy. He remarked that while every ruling political party in the country faces anti-incumbency, the BJP does not, sarcastically adding that this is because elections are designed in their favor. He also said the reasons given for the absence of anti-incumbency are varied. In the country, exit polls and opinion polls say one thing, but the actual results turn out to be completely different, Rahul Gandhi commented. Speaking on electoral fraud, Rahul Gandhi also cited several examples. He said that in Maharashtra, 40 lakh voters were registered within five months, which is more than the number of voters registered in five years.
He noted that although the Congress won six out of the seven segments in the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency, they lost with a huge margin in the Mahadevapura assembly segment. He mentioned a defeat margin of 1,14,000 votes and alleged that 1,00,250 of these votes were “stolen” in five different ways. These included 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 voters with fake/invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters or voters with the same address, and 4,132 voters with invalid photos. In addition to these, he said that 33,692 voters misused Form 6, which is meant for registering new voters. “This is the evidence of the crime that happened in one assembly constituency. We are observing similar patterns in every state. It is now clear to us that this is a large-scale crime happening across the country. CCTV footage and voter lists have now become evidence of the crime. The ECI is trying to destroy them. I am telling the people of the country – a huge criminal activity is being carried out, centered around the voting system. This is being done in collusion between the ECI and the ruling party,” Rahul Gandhi alleged.
It is already known that Rahul Gandhi had claimed they possess information as explosive as an “atom bomb” relating to election fraud. During the press conference, Rahul Gandhi even presented slides showing data with names of individuals involved in election irregularities. He pointed out that some names appeared in four or five different places. He said that a person named Aditya Srivastava had cast votes in Karnataka, Lucknow and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra. “There are 11,000 such voters who voted multiple times,” he said. He also showed details from the voter list such as entries with “House Number: Zero” and father’s names written in gibberish characters. He further showed an example of a 70-year-old voter named Shakun Rani, who registered twice using slightly different photos – once on September 13, 2023, and again on October 31, 2013 – and voted twice.
“I want to tell the Election Commission – you are not here to destroy Indian democracy, you are here to protect it,” Rahul Gandhi remarked. He stated that it took the Congress more than six months to identify the discrepancies in the voter list of just one constituency, as the lists were not in a machine-readable format. Hence, he demanded that the ECI provide voter lists in a machine-readable format and also release the CCTV footage of polling booths. However, he said, the ECI is not willing to do so. The ECI responded to Rahul Gandhi’s allegations by asking him to submit a sworn declaration if he truly believes what he is claiming. Rahul Gandhi responded to this as well. He said that as a political leader, he is stating all this openly to the public and that it should be taken as his sworn declaration. He clarified that everything he is saying and showing is based only on the Election Commission’s data.