Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has made strong charges of electoral wrongdoing in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, alleging that a party-ordered probe revealed large-scale voter fraud in a Karnataka Assembly constituency.
He accused the Election Commission of conspiring with the governing BJP to "steal elections," which triggered immediate and strong denials from the poll body and the BJP.
Referring to a dramatic shift in election results—most notably the lackluster performance by the INDIA bloc of parties in the recent Maharashtra Assembly elections, barely months after a resounding performance in the general elections—Gandhi cited evidence that irregularities were possible.
"BJP is not anti-incumbency. Opinion polls indicated one outcome, but what we witnessed was something different. Consider Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh—each of the outcomes defied predictions. They had created narratives such as Ladli Behna, Pulwama, Operation Sindoor. It was all in making a certain narrative," Gandhi said.
The Congress leader was especially scathing about the Election Commission's behavior. "The EC's timeline for the Assembly elections seemed choreographed.". In Maharashtra, rolls of voters unexpectedly swelled-more new voters were added in five months than in the previous five years. One crore fresh votes cast, but no increase in voting, our booth representatives reported. They say active voting at 5:30 PM, we saw nothing of that sort. That was for the first time we realized something was amiss," he added.
He also claimed that the Election Commission did not make digital voter rolls available to the Opposition, casting yet more doubt over transparency.
Gandhi outlined his party's discoveries from a targeted inquiry into the Mahadevapura Assembly segment, which is part of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat. He asserted that while the Congress had expected victory in 16 of the 28 Karnataka constituencies, it won just nine.
"Total votes in Bangalore Central were 6.26 lakh. BJP received 6,58,915 votes, and they won by 32,707. In Mahadevapura, BJP received 2,29,632, and Congress received 1,15,586. That seat got them the win," Gandhi said, revealing that the party found more than one lakh of fake votes.
The probe revealed the following, according to Gandhi:
- Duplicate records of the same voter
- Multiple voters registered in different states
- Non-existent or zero-address records
- Dozens of voters registered at a single address
- Fuzzy or tiny images on voter IDs
- Abuse of Form 6, meant for first-time voters
He blamed the election body for losing its position as an impartial authority: "They're not in the business of defending democracy anymore, they're assisting in destroying it. The umpire is on the other team. The judiciary must intervene in this because the democracy we so dearly love does not exist."
To this, Karnataka's Chief Electoral Officer responded by serving a notice on Gandhi, requesting him to present a signed declaration for an official investigation into the state's voters list.
"Electoral rolls are prepared openly, in accordance with the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960," the notice read. It also said that any contest to election results has to be made via legal petition to the High Court.
The Election Commission expects Gandhi’s declaration by the end of the day, according to sources. “Rahul Gandhi should be firm in signing this oath today and tweet it on his handle as well. If not, then he should withdraw his fabricated evidence,” a source from the Commission said.
The oath under Rule 20 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, mandates Gandhi to swear that the allegations are true and agree to legal responsibility under the RP Act and the Bhartiya Nyaya Samhita, 2023, in the event of making false statements.
Interestingly, sources in the poll panel suggested that Gandhi’s allegations could end up supporting their Special Intensive Revision (SIR) campaign to clean up voter rolls, which has already been underway in states like Bihar. “He is supporting our exercise in Bihar by talking about fake voters,” one source claimed.
At the same time, BJP leadership attacked Gandhi for what they called a political stunt. Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a statement to ANI, "It has become Rahul Gandhi's habit to make unsubstantiated allegations, suffer defamation cases and then apologise."
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan seconded this view. "The ideologically empty Congress party is methodically targeting constitutional institutions. The probability of an Indian democracy and Constitution behind such well-crafted trickery cannot be excluded," he added, drawing a parallel with the Emergency era.
He furthered, "Rahul Gandhi is disrespecting the people's wise choice by going against the Election Commission. Where was Rahul Gandhi when the Election Commission requested all parties to file a complaint against SIR in Bihar? Both the Congress and no INDI alliance party bothered to turn up. Hypocrisy isn't going to cut it—EC is impartial only if they win? That is not democracy. Gandhi family victory is not the only definition of democracy.
As the political fight to control voter rolls heats up, it is unclear whether Gandhi will make the formal declaration the Election Commission has called for—or endure additional political and legal consequences.
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