New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday alleged that the Election Commission is indulging in “vote chori” for the BJP, and claimed that his party has “open and shut” evidence for it.
The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha likened the evidence that his party has on alleged poll irregularities to an “atom bomb” and said that when it explodes the Election Commission will have no place to hide in the country.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has strongly refuted allegations made by the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, who accused the poll body of being complicit in alleged “vote chori (vote theft)” for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Terming the assertions “baseless”, the poll body maintained that it remains committed to conducting elections in a fair, impartial, and transparent manner.
“I have said ‘vote chori’ is happening and now we have open and shut proof that the Election Commission is involved in ‘vote chori’,” Gandhi told reporters in the Parliament House complex here.
“I am not saying this lightly. I am saying this with 100 per cent proof. As soon as we release it the whole country would know that EC is indulging in ‘vote chori’. It is doing it for the BJP,” he said.
Gandhi said his party had suspicions of poll irregularities in Madhya Pradesh assembly polls in 2023, then in the Lok Sabha polls and this went further in Maharashtra.
“We believe that vote theft has happened at the state level (in Maharashtra). Voter revision had happened and crore voters were added. Then we went into detail seeing that the EC is not helping and decided to dig deep into this,” he said.
“We got our own investigation done, it took six months and what we have found is an atom bomb. When it explodes, the EC would have no place to hide in the country,” Gandhi said.
The Congress leader also warned that those people in the EC who are involved in this, right from the top to the bottom, should remember that they will not be spared because they are “working against India”.
“This is treason, nothing less than that. You may be retired, you may be anywhere, we will find you,” Gandhi said.
The Congress leader’s remarks came after he, along with leaders of several Opposition parties, wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, urging him to schedule a special discussion on the ongoing voter list revision in Bihar without any further delay.
In their letter to Birla, the Opposition MPs expressed deep concern over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar, especially a few months before the state assembly elections.
The opposition has been protesting in both Houses of Parliament against the SIR, alleging the EC’s exercise was aimed at “disenfranchising voters” in Bihar ahead of the Assembly elections. They have been demanding a discussion on the issue in both Houses. (PTI)
