Rahul Gandhi: EC colluding with BJP to 'steal elections'

Stating that the Congress has collected “concrete evidence of vote chori”, party leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday (August 7) alleged that the Election Commission (EC) is colluding with the BJP to “steal elections”.

Rahul cited analysis of data from a Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka from the 2024 general elections while addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi.

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If the EC does not give us machine-readable data for the past 10-15 years and the CCTV footage, they are partaking in the crime, Rahul, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, said.

Analysis of voter data

"The judiciary needs to get involved in this because the democracy that we love so much does not exist," the former Congress president said.

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Talking to the media through an online presentation, Rahul said they analysed the voter data of Lok Sabha constituency of Bangalore Central and the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in it from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

He said in the whole Lok Sabha seat, the Congress got 6,26,208 votes while the BJP got 6,58,915, a margin of 32,707.

Rahul pointed out that while the Congress won six out of seven segments, it lost in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in which it was defeated by over 1,14,000 votes.

He claimed there was “vote chori” (vote theft) of 1,00,250 votes in the constituency with 11,965 duplicate voters in one Assembly 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.

Alleging that it is being committed throughout the country, he said this is a “crime against the Indian Constitution and the Indian flag”.

He said the Congress would like to remind the EC that it is in the business of protecting elections.

‘BJP won 25 LS seats with less than 33,000 votes’

Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister with a slender majority and needed to “steal” only 25 seats to stay in power, he said.

The BJP won 25 seats in the Lok Sabha polls with less than 33,000 votes, Rahul said.

He said the foundation of our Constitution is based on the fact that one person gets one vote.

“When we look at polls, the fundamental thing is how to secure ‘one man, one vote’ idea. Are the right people allowed to vote? Are fake people being added? Is the voter list true or not?” he said.

“For some time there has been suspicion among the public. Anti-incumbency hits every single party, but the BJP is the only party that does not suffer anti-incumbency in a democratic framework,” he said.

Rahul on exit polls

Exit polls go massively wrong and so do internal surveys, he said.

Rahul alleged that elections are “choreographed ” these days lasting months, when earlier, with minimal technology, the polls were conducted in the country together.

“Not giving machine-readable voter list and disallowing CCTV footage by changing the law convinced us that the EC colluded with the BJP to steal elections,” he claimed.

He also alleged that EC is looking to "destroy" evidence of "vote chori" in the whole country.