Declare under oath... EC counters Rahul's 'vote chori' charge

Mumbai: Chief Electoral Officers of Karnataka and Maharashtra on Thursday wrote a letter to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over allegations he had made against the Election Commission (EC) of colluding with the BJP to steal polls.

The Karnataka and Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officers asked Rahul Gandhi to share names of excluded voters and added ineligible ones with signed declaration/oath. Rahul Gandhi cited an analysis of data from a Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka from the 2024 general elections to allege that the Election Commission is colluding with the BJP to "steal elections" and called it a "crime" against the Constitution.

Rahul Gandhi claimed that there was a "vote chori" of 1,00,250 votes in a 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.

The CEOs asked Rahul Gandhi to sign and return a declaration/oath enclosed in the letter, along with the names of electors to initiate necessary proceedings. “It is understood that during a press conference held today you had mentioned about the inclusion of ineligible electors and exclusions of eligible electors in the electoral rolls…,” the letter by chief electoral officers of both the states read. On the Election Commission's response, Rahul Gandhi said, “I'm a politician. What I say to the people is my word. I'm saying it publicly to everybody. Take it as an oath. This is their data, and we are displaying their data.” "This is not our data. This is Election Commission data. Interestingly, they haven't denied the information. They haven't told the voter list that Rahul Gandhi is talking about are wrong. Why don't you say they are wrong? Because you know the truth. You know that we know that you have done this across the country...," Rahul Gandhi said.