[Watch] LS Polls Were Rigged, Arun Jaitley Threatened Me Over Farm Laws: Rahul Gandhi’s Big Claims

New Delhi: Claiming that the election system in the country has turned dead, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were “rigged” and that he possesses documentary evidence to prove large-scale voter fraud. Speaking at the Congress party’s “Annual Legal Conclave” in Delhi, Gandhi accused the Election Commission of being complicit in the alleged manipulation and claimed the institution has “ceased to exist in its true form.”

“We are going to prove to you in the coming few days how a Lok Sabha election can be rigged and was rigged,” he said. The leader further claimed that BJP won the last general elections with a very slim majority.

“We have proof that the elections were stolen. We’ve done a six-month investigation. We have documentation. In one Lok Sabha seat alone, where 6.5 lakh votes were cast, 1.5 lakh were fake voters,” Gandhi said. Without naming the constituency, he alleged that this pattern was repeated in multiple seats across the country. He claimed the number of manipulated seats could be “at least 15 and possibly as many as 70 to 80.”

The Congress leader described the evidence as an “atom bomb,” indicating that the party would release the data in the coming days. “We are going to put all this material in front of the people of India. It will show exactly how the electoral system was hijacked,” he said.

Gandhi also took direct aim at the Election Commission of India (ECI), alleging that the institution had been “taken over” and “obliterated.” He claimed there was no level playing field in the electoral process and that democratic institutions had been systematically undermined.

Reacting sharply, the Election Commission rejected the allegations as “baseless and irresponsible.” In a statement, the ECI called the accusations “unfounded” and condemned what it described as “attempts to demoralise election officials.” The poll panel urged its staff to remain “fearless and impartial” in the face of political attacks.

‘Arjun Jaitley had threatened me…’

In another controversial claim, Gandhi alleged that the late BJP leader Arun Jaitley had tried to “threaten” him over his support for farmers’ protests. This was swiftly countered by Jaitley’s son, Rohan Jaitley, who pointed out that his father had passed away in 2019—before the farm laws were introduced—and said the statement was “factually incorrect and disrespectful.”

“Rahul Gandhi now claims my late father, Arun Jaitley, threatened him over the farm laws. Let me remind him, my father passed away in 2019. The farm laws were introduced in 2020. More importantly, it was not in my father’s nature to threaten anyone over an opposing view. He was a staunch democrat and always believed in building consensus,” Rohan posted on X.

“I remember when I was fighting the farm laws, Arun Jaitley ji was sent to me to threaten me. He told me, ‘If you carry on opposing the govt, fighting the farm laws, we will have to act against you’. I looked at him and said, “I don’t think you have an idea who you are talking to,” Gandhi had alleged.