Congress claims ‘proof of huge criminal fraud’ in polls, alleges EC-BJP collusion

New Delhi, Aug 7: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday cited an analysis of data from a Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka from the 2024 elections to make explosive claims of “huge criminal fraud” in polls perpetrated by the BJP through the Election Commission, and asserted that this was a “crime” against the Constitution.
The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha also said that the judiciary needs to get involved in this because the democracy that “we love so much does not exist”.
Gandhi said what his party had collected was “criminal evidence” and alleged that the Election Commission was busy destroying such proof across the country.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC’s Indira Bhawan headquarters here, Gandhi also hit back at the Election Commission for demanding from him a signed declaration on his claims and said he had made the remarks publicly and they can “take it as an oath”.
“I am a politician, what I say to the people is my word. I am saying it to the people publicly, take it as an oath. Interestingly, they haven’t denied the information.
“They haven’t said the voter lists (shown by me) are wrong, they are saying Rahul Gandhi should say it under oath… they know the truth. We know you (EC) have done this across the country,” the former Congress president said.
Talking to the media while taking them through an online presentation, Gandhi said they analysed the voter data of the Lok Sabha constituency of Bangalore Central and the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in it from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.”Our internal polls indicated that we were expected to win 16 seats in Karnataka (in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections). However, we won nine. We then focused on the seven unexpected losses and chose the Mahadevapura Vidhan Sabha constituency. All the data we have here is from the 2024 elections, sourced from the Election Commission,” he asserted.
Gandhi cited that in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP secured 6,58,915 votes in the Bangalore Central seat, winning with a margin of 32,707.
“In the Mahadevapura assembly segment, the Congress received 1,15,586 votes, whereas the BJP garnered 2,29,632 votes.
“The Congress won all the Vidhan Sabhas except Mahadevapura, where the BJP swept and secured a victory margin of 1,14,046 votes. This seat significantly contributed to their election win, and the Lok Sabha result went in their favour on that seat,” he said.
“This discrepancy is a huge imbalance. So, we started examining the details and discovered that approximately 1,00,250 votes were stolen in the Mahadevapura assembly,” he claimed.
Gandhi alleged there was “vote chori” of 1,00,250 votes in the Mahadevapura segment, with 11,965 duplicate voters in the segment, 40,009 voters with fake and invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters or single address voters, 4,132 voters with invalid photos and 33,692 voters misusing Form 6 of new voters.
Gandhi backed his claims of discrepancies with data displayed on the giant screen, citing examples of fake voters, duplicate voters and single address voters. “This is EC data, and the EC is saying it is getting free and fair polls done. In one assembly segment, one lakh fake voters are there, we are telling the people of the country, this is your future. The whole system is being stolen. This evidence is 100 per cent in black and white,” the Congress leader said.
“We see there is a pattern, we are absolutely convinced that this crime is being done on a huge scale across the country in state after state after state. CCTV footage and voter list are evidence in crime and the Election Commission is trying to destroy it,” he said.
“I want the nation to know that there is a huge criminal fraud being perpetrated on this country. It is being done by the Election Commission and the party in power and we have given you undoubtable proof,” he said.
“If the Election Commission now does not give us electronic voter data of the last 10-15 years, and if it does not share the CCTV footage, they are partaking in the crime,” he said. (PTI)