Rahul Gandhi alleges massive voter fraud in Karnataka, accuses EC of collusion with BJP
PTC Web Desk: In a scathing press conference, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi launched a direct attack on the Election Commission of India, accusing it of working in tandem with the BJP to manipulate election outcomes by adding fake voters to electoral rolls. Rahul Gandhi alleged large-scale voter fraud in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat during the 2024 General Election.
The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha claimed a “bhayankar chori” (massive theft) of votes, stating that over 1 lakh votes in Mahadevapura were fraudulent. Rahul Gandhi cited an internal Congress investigation that found 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 entries with fake or invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters registered under a single address, and 4,132 entries with invalid photographs. Additionally, he claimed 33,692 new voters misused Form 6, typically meant for first-time or relocated voters.
Out of the 6.5 lakh votes polled in Mahadevapura, the Congress leader alleged “vote chori” (vote theft) to the tune of 1,00,250 votes. Despite the Congress winning six out of seven Assembly segments in the Bangalore Central constituency, it lost the Mahadevapura segment by 1,14,000 votes, which ultimately led to BJP’s PC Mohan narrowly defeating Congress candidate Mansoor Ali Khan by 32,707 votes. The final tally stood at 6,58,915 votes for the BJP and 6,26,208 for Congress.
Rahul Gandhi also raised serious concerns over the Election Commission’s refusal to provide voter lists in electronic format. Holding up a bundle of voter papers during the press conference, he claimed the manual process of identifying duplicate entries was cumbersome and time-consuming, taking the Congress nearly six months to analyse Mahadevapura alone.
“This is seven feet of paper. If we had machine-readable digital voter lists, we could expose this fraud in just 30 seconds,” he said, accusing the EC of deliberately providing non-machine-readable formats to block scrutiny. “Why are we being given data like this? So that it is not analysed,” Rahul Gandhi said.
Responding to the allegations, sources within the Election Commission dismissed the Congress leader's claims as baseless and politically motivated. “Either sign and submit the evidence, or stop misleading the people of India,” said an EC source, urging the Congress to provide a sworn affidavit if it genuinely possessed proof of electoral malpractice.
The Karnataka State Election Commission also asked Rahul Gandhi to submit a signed affidavit, questioning why the Congress had not formally lodged a complaint despite its claims of serious fraud.
The controversy comes ahead of a major Congress-led protest march in Karnataka against the Election Commission, which Rahul Gandhi is set to lead.
Rahul Gandhi further claimed that despite anti-incumbency being a global political norm, the BJP appeared immune. He questioned the credibility of exit polls that failed to predict the actual outcomes in recent Assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra, where results swung sharply in favour of the BJP-led alliances.
“Exit polls said one thing, but the results went in the opposite direction with massive swings,” he said, implying potential manipulation.
- With inputs from agencies
