Rahul Gandhi again targets Election Commission
New Delhi, Aug 8: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has urged the Karnataka government to investigate alleged voter fraud in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment under Bangalore Central, claiming that over 1,00,250 fake votes were created to help the BJP win during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, The Hindu newspaper reported. Addressing a rally at Freedom Park alongside party president Mallikarjun Kharge and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Gandhi accused the Election Commission of colluding with the BJP to “steal seats and elections.” He demanded immediate access to electronic voter data and polling booth videography from the past ten years, calling the incident a “criminal act.”
The Congress leader listed five methods allegedly used to inflate BJP votes, including duplicate entries, fake addresses, misuse of Form 6, and voter clustering. He warned that similar manipulation could have occurred in other constituencies as well.
Separately, Rahul Gandhi on Friday in a social media post, posed five pointed questions to the poll body, reiterating his charge that the Commission acted in concert with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), reports national media. The Congress MP accused the ECI of withholding the digital voter list from opposition parties, erasing CCTV footage from polling stations, allowing voter list tampering, and intimidating political rivals. He also questioned whether the poll body was functioning as an “agent” of the BJP. Gandhi’s renewed allegations come after he claimed that over one lakh fake votes were added in the Mahadevapura assembly segment in Karnataka’s Bangalore Central constituency, helping the BJP secure a fourth straight win. He has also alleged that the ECI aided in suppressing this evidence by limiting the preservation of video footage to 45 days post-election unless legally challenged.
At a press conference held at the Congress headquarters on Thursday, Gandhi claimed that electoral malpractice in select seats enabled Prime Minister Narendra Modi to retain power with a narrow margin. He alleged that if similar investigations were carried out in other constituencies, more instances of manipulation would be revealed. In response to his allegations, the chief electoral officers of Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Haryana have asked Gandhi to formally submit his evidence under oath. The Election Commission, which has already rejected several of Gandhi’s claims, continues to face pressure from opposition leaders demanding greater transparency in the conduct of elections.
