Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday alleged widespread voter fraud and manipulation during the recent elections.
At a press conference, Gandhi claimed the Election Commission was biased and colluded with the BJP to influence electoral outcomes, particularly in Maharashtra, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh.
Calling the elections choreographed, Gandhi said the BJP had been shielded from anti-incumbency through systematic manipulation. He specifically pointed to Maharashtra, claiming the results validated the INDIA Bloc’s concerns about electoral malpractice. Gandhi stated that one crore new voters were added between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections, noting that the increase even surpassed the population growth, which he described as shocking.
He also raised concerns about the significant spike in voter turnout, noting that there was a massive increase after five years, and was evident to everyone. He urged for more openness and accountability in the conduct of elections.
Gandhi alleged that the EC was intentionally not providing electronic data. He claimed that if the data were provided in electronic format, it could be analysed within seconds. But what we are given are papers that do not support optical character recognition, making analysis difficult.
He further alleged that the EC was not safeguarding democracy but rather protecting physical documents, claiming that the data was being deliberately obscured to avoid scrutiny.
He said when the INDIA bloc approached the EC about the voter list irregularities in Maharashtra, they received no response.
Expanding on the alleged irregularities in Karnataka, Gandhi claimed that in the Mahadevapura constituency alone, out of 6.5 lakh votes, over one lakh were fraudulent. He added that Congress researchers had identified duplicate entries, invalid addresses, and large-scale registration of bulk voters.
Gandhi warned that the issue was not an isolated case, asserting that such electoral misconduct was occurring on a national scale, across multiple states. He claimed that both voter lists and CCTV footage now served as evidence of these irregularities and alleged that the EC was attempting to destroy the evidence.
Concluding his remarks, he stated that the matter went beyond voter fraud, calling it a crime against the Constitution and the national flag.