Undaunted Rahul Gandhi doubles down on 'vote chori' allegations against EC

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar may fret, fume and froth, but Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi has made it clear that he won’t be dialling down his allegations of the Election Commission’s complicity in “vote chori” (vote theft) for the ruling BJP.

On Sunday (August 17), Rahul, along with senior leaders of the Opposition’s Grand Alliance in Bihar, flagged off the Voter Adhikar Yatra, which will now traverse across 1300 km of the poll-bound state over the next 16 days.

Also read | Voter Adhikar Yatra: Won't let 'conspiracy' to 'steal' Bihar polls succeed, says Rahul

Launched from Sasaram in Bihar’s Shahabad region, the yatra will cover 50 Assembly constituencies spread across 23 districts of the state’s Magadh, Mithila, Seemanchal, Ang and Tirhut regions, before it concludes in Patna on September 1, where senior leaders of the Opposition’s INDIA bloc are expected to address a mega rally from Gandhi Maidan.

Fierce offensive against EC

The Sasaram rally saw Rahul, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav and other leaders of the Grand Alliance launch a blistering attack at the EC for allegedly colluding with the BJP to weaponise the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls for mass deletion of legitimate voters.

While the Lok Sabha’s LoP accused the EC of “vote chori”, Tejashwi, the Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly and the Grand Alliance’s de facto CM face, went a step further to assert that what was going on in the name of purification of the state’s voter rolls was not vote chori but “dacoity” (vote ki chori nahi, dakaity daali ja rahi hai).

An ailing Lalu Prasad Yadav, RJD chief and Tejashwi’s father, too, was present at the rally against the advice of his doctors. Amid a rousing applause, Lalu appealed to the people of Bihar to “uproot the BJP” (BJP ko ukhaad kar phainkiye) while Tejashwi alleged that the SIR “wasn’t just a conspiracy to steal the right to vote but to eventually rob all of you of your identity because once your vote is gone, your pension, ration and everything else will go too”. Rahul then brought on stage several Bihari voters who had purportedly been declared “dead” in the draft electoral rolls prepared by the poll panel earlier this month.

Insult to India’s voters: EC

Within an hour of the launch of Rahul’s Voter Adhikar Yatra, the CEC addressed a press conference in Delhi and equated the accusations of ‘vote chori’ with an insult to India’s voters and electoral system. Though Kumar did not take the names of any political party or leader in his interaction with the media, his statements left no doubt that his greatest contempt was reserved for Rahul.

Also read | CEC Gyanesh Kumar presser: Barbs for Rahul, answers for none

In a scarcely veiled attack at Rahul, who had recently made startling revelations of mass irregularities in electoral rolls in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly constituency, Kumar reiterated that if the allegations were not made on a sworn affidavit “within seven days” as demanded by the poll panel from Rahul, they would be considered “baseless” and that the person hurling the accusation must then “apologise to the nation”.

That the CEC’s harsh words made little impact on Rahul was clear within hours. As the Yatra proceeded from Sasaram to Aurangabad, the Congress leader stepped up his attacks on the poll panel.

Unfazed Rahul targets EC, again

“The SIR is a means to steal your votes,” Rahul told a massive crowd that had gathered at Aurangabad’s Ramesh Chowk to hear him. “Earlier, they used to do this (vote theft) surreptitiously, but now they are doing it openly. I want to tell you (the crowd), today no case can be lodged against the Election Commissioners; no court of this country, be it the high court or the Supreme Court, can foist a case against them. Do you know why? In 2023, a law was made since Narendra Modi and Amit Shah do not want anyone to take any action against the Election Commission because they know that the EC is helping them in stealing votes.”

Tejashwi, who is steering the plans for Rahul’s yatra along with his Grand Alliance leaders in Bihar, too reiterated his “dacoity” charge at the EC. Having now made his father Lalu Yadav’s characteristic wit his own, Tejashwi told the cheering crowd that the prime minister was using the EC to take away the right to vote of Bihar’s poor and marginalised and warned the PM, ‘not to con the people of Bihar or they will teach you a lesson’ (Modiji, Bihar ko choona mat lagaiye, Bihar ke log khaini ke saath choona masalte hain aur chaba dete hain.)

The Sasaram and Aurangabad rallies of Rahul have set the tone and tenor of what can be expected as the yatra chugs on towards its next destinations – Sheikhpura, Munger, Katihar, Purnia, Supaul, Darbhanga, Sitamarhi, Bettiah and Chhapra before reaching Patna.

Bid to flag voter exclusions

Sources involved with organising the yatra, modelled as a fusion of Rahul’s famous Bharat Jodo Yatra and Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, told The Federal that efforts are also on to identify people along the yatra’s route who have found their names wrongly deleted in the draft rolls after the EC either branded them ‘dead’, ‘permanently migrated’ or as people registered as voters in multiple locations.

Also read | EC press conference | CEC to Rahul: Submit affidavit within 7 days or allegations will be considered baseless

“In Sasaram and Aurangabad, Rahul met voters whose names have been deleted from the draft rolls without their knowledge. In fact, at the Sasaram rally, over half a dozen voters who the EC has declared dead in the draft rolls were called on stage to meet Rahul and other mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) leaders. Our local units are in touch with more such people because Rahul wants to meet them wherever possible during the yatra so that we can show the people at large how SIR is being used for vote theft; the local leadership has also been given clear instructions that whenever we find someone whose name has been wrongly excluded from the rolls, they must immediately take up the matter with the EC and get the mistake rectified,” a senior Bihar Congress leader involved with the yatra said.