Rahul Gandhi alleges ‘Election Commission colluded with BJP’ to ‘steal’ Maharashtra polls
Rahul Gandhi alleged the EC planned to destroy CCTV footage, calling it suspicious amid questions over a voting spike after 5.30 pm in Maharashtra.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday alleged that the Election Commission’s refusal to provide a machine-readable voter list convinced the Opposition that the poll body had colluded with the BJP to “steal” the elections in Maharashtra.
Citing a sharp increase in registered voters and an alleged unusual spike in turnout late in the day, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said the numbers did not add up and raised serious doubts about the integrity of the electoral process.
“In Maharashtra, the addition of more voters in 5 months than in 5 years raised our suspicions, and then a huge jump in voter turnout after 5 pm,” Gandhi said.
“In Vidhan Sabha, our alliance was wiped and in Lok Sabha, our alliance sweeps. Very suspicious,” he added.
He claimed that one crore new voters appeared between the two elections. “We found that between Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha, one crore new voters came into the game. We went to the Election Commission and wrote this article, and the crux of our argument was that the Maharashtra election was stolen.”
According to Gandhi, the refusal to share the voter list was a red flag. “What is the crux of the problem? The voter list is the property of this country. The Election Commission refuses to give us the voter list,” he said.
He also pointed to the Election Commission’s alleged decision to destroy polling-day surveillance footage, calling it deeply suspicious.
“They said we are going to destroy the CCTV footage. This was surprising to us because there was a question in Maharashtra about a massive voting after 5.30 pm for the numbers to add up.”
“Our people knew that in the polling booths, no such thing happened. There was no massive voting after 5.30 pm,” he said.
“These two things made us believe with reasonable certainty that the Election Commission of India was colluding with the BJP to steal elections,” Gandhi added.
Gandhi also alleged that the poll body colluded with the BJP to "steal elections" in a Karnataka Lok Sabha constituency and called it a “crime against the Constitution.” He said the Congress had assembled a team and gathered “concrete evidence of vote chori” over six months.
In response, the Karnataka chief electoral officer asked him to submit a signed declaration along with the names of genuine voters allegedly excluded and ineligible ones added to the rolls.
However, Gandhi responded, “What I say to the people is my word. Take it as an oath. This is their (EC) data, and we are displaying their data.”
