Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 8: While the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday asked the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi to sign under oath a declaration incorporating his allegations of “vote theft” in the last Lok Sabha elections or apologise to the nation for false claims, the Congress leader directed his party government in Karnataka to investigate the “vote fraud” in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency and take action against officials found involved in irregularities.
The development followed Mr Gandhi holding a media presentation in New Delhi on Thursday and showing “evidence” in support of his accusations against the ECI of colluding with the ruling BJP to “steal” over 1 lakh votes in the Mahadevapura assembly segment of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency in last year’s general elections to help the BJP win the seat.
Mr Gandhi, who led a huge protest rally against alleged vote theft during the 2024 parliamentary polls, at Freedom Park in Bengaluru on Friday, reiterated his claim that over one lakh fake votes were “created” by the ECI in collusion with the BJP in the Mahadevapura segment to ensure that the BJP with the Bangalore Central seat in the Lok Sabha in 2024 elections.
Demanding that the ECI should immediately share electronic voter data and videography done at polling booths during the elections in the last ten years, Mr Gandhi said if they do not do so, it only proves that they are hiding evidence of a ‘criminal act’ and helping the BJP in stealing votes.
Mr Gandhi had claimed that a deep analysis by a 40-member team of the Congress party found duplicate voters, fake addresses of voters and false pictures, and suspicious Form 6 applications. “EC was colluding with the BJP to steal elections. This is why they don’t give us machine-readable data,” he alleged. Rahul Gandhi said his party was ahead in all other assembly areas of Bangalore Central, but the BJP got a big lead of 1.14 lakh votes in Mahadevapura, which helped it win the seat by 32,707 votes.
Listing out five different ways through which the alleged “vote fraud” was done, he said the ECI had manipulated to increase the voters for BJP by creating duplicate voters. “Our research in the last six months by tallying every voter identity photo with lakhs of photographs has shown fake and invalid addresses have been created. While bulk voters have been found at a single address, invalid photos and the misuse of Form 6 that is meant for enrolling first time voters has been done,” he explained.
He also said Mahadevapura was just an example and his party suspect that similar frauds were also played out in other constituencies to ensure that the NDA get a majority and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi stay in power.
The Election Commission has demanded Rahul Gandhi to either sign the declaration affirming his allegations or apologise to the country for “absurd allegations.” “If Rahul Gandhi believes in his analysis and believes that his allegations against ECI are true, he should have no problem in signing the Declaration. If Rahul Gandhi does not sign the Declaration, it would mean that he does not believe in his analysis and resultant conclusions and absurd allegations. In which case he should apologise to the nation. Therefore, he has two options: Either sign the Declaration or Apologise to the Nation for raising absurd allegations against ECI,” Election Commission sources said on Friday.
As Rahul Gandhi made the claims on Thursday, several state chief electoral officers, including those from Maharashtra, Karnataka, wrote to him, seeking specific names of electors with a signed declaration under Rule 20(3)(b) of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, to initiate action. “You are kindly requested to sign and return the enclosed declaration/oath… so that necessary proceedings can be initiated,” the Karnataka CEO’s letter said.
The constitutional experts, however, said the ECI or some of the state chief electoral officers of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Haryana asking Mr Gandhi to sign the declaration under oath was “infructuous” in this situation as the rule quoted by them “Rule 20 (3) (b) of the Registration of Electors Rules 1960” was valid only if any complaint was filed within 30 days of the publication of draft Electoral Rolls before elections.
According to Constitution Law expert P.D.T. Achary, “These rules do not apply in this situation. These rules apply till 30 days after draft rolls are published.” “In this case elections were held 15 months back (Lok Sabha polls 2024) and the Congress party has investigated the entire issue on its own now. These rules have no application whatsoever to the present case,” he said, adding, “they (ECI) are wrong to invoke this rule.”
A former chief election commissioner O. P. Rawat also said the rule quoted by the ECI was more applicable in cases like Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls in progress in Bihar. Senior lawyer Kapil Sibal said asking Mr Gandhi to file the affidavit was “a joke” since no inquiry can take place under the rule now.
“They are asking for affidavit to be filed and under a rule in which no inquiry can take place. It is a joke in itself. They will go to the people saying that Rahul Gandhi has been asked to submit an affidavit, but will not tell that no action can be taken under the said rule,” he said.
According to Mr Achary, since the ECI was a constitutional body entrusted with the preparation of Electoral Rolls under Article 324, it should be the duty of the poll body to enquire into allegations regarding serious frauds.