Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 24: The Congress has “concrete 100% proof” that the Election Commission of India allowed cheating at least in one Parliamentary constituency in Karnataka, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi claimed on Thursday.
Mr Gandhi also warned the poll panel that it would not be allowed to get away with it because the Congress was “going to come for you.” Mr Gandhi alleged that the Election Commission was not functioning as the Election Commission of India, and was “not doing its job,”
“Not 90%, when we decide to show it to you, it is a 100% proof,” he said. “We just looked at one constituency and we found this. I am absolutely convinced that constituency after constituency this is the drama that is taking place. Thousands and thousands of new voters, how old are they? — 45, 50, 60, 65, thousands and thousands of them in one constituency. This is one thing, voter deletion, voter addition, new voters who are way above 18 (is going on)… so we have caught them,” he said.
“I want to send a message to the Election Commission — if you think you are going to get away with this, if your officers think they are going to get away with this, you are mistaken, you are not going to get away with this because we are going to come for you,” Mr Gandhi told reporters in Parliament House premises.
The Congress leader on Wednesday had alleged that elections were being “stolen” in India and claimed that his party had figured out the modus operandi of the “votes theft” by studying a Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka. Gandhi said he would put before the people and the Election Commission in black in white on how the “theft of votes” was being done. Continuing his attack on the ECI, the former Congress president said the poll body has understood this, which is why it was now conducting the SIR drive in Bihar to delete some of the voters.
His remarks came after he was asked by the reporters about his party’s “Mahagathbandhan” partner in Bihar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav’s reported observation that the opposition might consider boycotting the coming Bihar Assembly elections in view of the “dishonest” Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar being conducted by the ECI. While Mr Gandhi was non-committal about Mr Yadav’s remarks of boycotting elections, he supported Mr Yadav’s contention about ECI’s dishonesty pointing to the Congress finding in Karnataka.
Mr Yadav had made the remarks after it emerged that during house-to-house visit in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll in Bihar, poll officials have so far found that more than 52 lakh voters were not present at their addresses. The opposition has been protesting in both houses of Parliament against the SIR, alleging that the EC’s exercise was aimed at disenfranchising voters in Bihar ahead of the assembly elections. The exercise had been termed as the selective choice of the voters to benefit the ruling alliance.
However, rejecting Mr Gandhi’s contention, the top poll body urged the Congress leader to refrain from making “baseless allegations.” In a statement, the ECI said everyone should wait for the high court’s verdict on an election petition filed.