Bengaluru: Under pressure after Rahul Gandhi held a press conference recently and accused it of colluding with the BJP to “steal elections” through “vote chori” (vote theft) by providing data, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has asked for proof from the Congress leader.
The Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has written to Rahul, asking him to submit documents supporting one of his allegations that a voter cast her ballot twice in last year’s Lok Sabha elections.
The CEO referred to Rahul’s press conference on Thursday, when he claimed that certain documents in his presentation were “EC data” and alleged that one Shakun Rani had voted twice based on records “given by the polling officer.”
“Is ID card par do baar vote laga hai, wo jo tick hai, polling booth ke officer ki hai (This ID has been used to vote twice, the tick marks were made by polling booth officer)”, ECI quoted Rahul as saying.
However, the poll panel said that during an inquiry, Shakun stated she had voted only once. A preliminary probe also found that the tick-marked document that Rahul showed at the press conference was not issued by the polling officer, contrary to his claim.
“You are kindly requested to provide the relevant documents on the basis of which you have concluded that Shakun Rani or anyone else has voted twice, so that a detailed enquiry can be conducted,” ECI’s letter said.
Launching a no-holds-barred attack on the Election Commission, Rahul alleged that fake names were being added to voter lists and presented electoral rolls from Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly segment in Bangalore Central as proof.
Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency had witnessed a close contest in the 2024 elections, with Congress candidate Mansoor Ali Khan leading for most part before BJP’s PC Mohan was declared winner by 32,707 votes. Rahul said Congress had won six out of seven Assembly segments but lost Mahadevapura by 1,14,000 votes, which he attributed to “vote theft.”
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