Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and LoP in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi during the party's 'Vote Adhikar Rally', at Freedom Park in Bengaluru, Friday, August 8. PTI
‘Vote chori’ claims: EC says documents shown by Rahul don't belong to poll body
The CEO reissues a notice to the Congress leader to provide documents over his allegations of people voting twice during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections
After Rahul Gandhi made allegations of “vote chori” (vote theft), the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Karnataka on Sunday (August 10) issued a notice to the Congress leader to provide documents over his allegations of people voting twice during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Also read: Rahul Gandhi: EC colluding with BJP to 'steal elections'
The CEO asked Rahul, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, about his allegation of a person named Shakun Rani voting twice while claiming that it was per Election Commission’s (EC) data.
What is in notice?
In the notice, the CEO said, “In your press conference, you have stated that the documents shown in your presentation are from the records of the Election Commission of India. You have said: ‘This is EC data’.”
Also read: 'Vote chori': Congress launches portal, urges people to 'register'
The officer added that Rani had stated that she did not vote twice in the general elections. “You have also stated that as per the records given by the polling officer, Smt. Shakun Rani has voted twice. On inquiry, Smt. Shakun Rani has stated that she has voted only once and not twice as alleged by you.”
Rahul's allegations
Further, the officer said the document shared by Rahul during his press conference was not from the EC, and hence asked him to provide evidence to back his allegations.
“Preliminary enquiry conducted by this office also reveals that the tick-marked document shown by you in the presentation is not a document issued by the polling officer.
“Therefore, you are kindly requested to provide the relevant documents on the basis of which you have concluded that Smt. Shakun Rani or anyone else has voted twice, so that a detailed inquiry can be undertaken by this office,” the officer said.
On August 7, Rahul alleged that the EC is colluding with the BJP to “steal elections”. He cited an analysis of data from a Lok Sabha constituency (Mahadevapura Assembly segment in Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency) in Karnataka from the 2024 general elections.