NEW DELHI: Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Sunday launched a scathing attack on the BJP and the Election Commission of India over his “vote theft” remark, accusing the latter of colluding with the ruling party to “steal” elections.
Addressing a large gathering during the joint ‘Vote Adhikar Rally’ in poll-bound Bihar’s Sasaram, Rahul said, “The entire country knows what the Election Commission is doing. Earlier, the country did not know how votes were being stolen. But we made it clear in the press conference (on August 7) how votes are being stolen.”
Calling the Special Intensive Revision exercise in Bihar a conspiracy to steal the state elections, Rahul said they (Congress and allies) will not let this happen.
“BJP and the Election Commission are stealing Lok Sabha and Assembly elections across the country. Their latest conspiracy is to conduct SIR in Bihar and steal the Bihar elections as well. BJP and the Election Commission, take note—we will not let the Bihar election be stolen,” he said.
Referring to the poll panel’s notice to him following his ‘vote chori’ presser, the Congress leader said the BJP and the Election Commission are stealing Lok Sabha and Assembly elections across the country.
“I held a press conference on ‘vote theft,’ and the Election Commission asked me for an affidavit. When some days ago, BJP people held a press conference, no affidavit was asked from them,” he said.
He also asked why the poll panel was asking for his affidavit when the data shared “belongs to the Election Commission”.
He also reiterated his claim that the Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024 were rigged, suggesting the BJP, with the help of the Election Commission, received over one crore new voters added between the Lok Sabha elections and the state polls.
“All opinion polls in Maharashtra were saying that the INDIA alliance would win, but the BJP alliance won the assembly elections.
”Upon investigation, we found that the Election Commission had magically created one crore new voters in Maharashtra. This means that one crore new voters were added between the Lok Sabha and assembly elections, and wherever these new voters appeared, the BJP alliance won,” he said.
The Congress leader continued, “Not a single vote of ours was reduced. Our alliance received the same number of votes in the assembly elections as it did in the Lok Sabha elections. Meanwhile, the votes of the new voters went to the BJP.”
“We lodged a complaint and asked the Election Commission to provide us with videography, but they did not help. Then we started our own investigation. We checked the voter list in an assembly constituency of a Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka and found that more than one lakh votes were stolen there,” he added.
Agencies