In a sharp exchange on Friday, the Election Commission of India (ECI) issued a firm rebuttal to Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s serious allegations of widespread voter fraud. The Congress MP had accused the ECI of direct involvement in “vote theft,” particularly during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls conducted in Bihar.
The poll body rejected Gandhi’s charges outright, stating, “The Election Commission ignores such baseless allegations being made every day and, despite the threats being given every day, it asks all election officials who are working in a fair and transparent manner to not pay heed to such irresponsible statements.”
Gandhi Claims ‘Open-and-Shut’ Proof of Electoral Misconduct
Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi claimed his party had uncovered evidence of large-scale electoral malpractice following its own six-month investigation.
“Votes are being stolen. We have open-and-shut proof that the Election Commission is involved in this vote theft. I’m not saying this lightly. I’m speaking with 100 percent proof. And when we release it, the entire country will come to know that the Election Commission is enabling vote theft. And who are they doing it for? They’re doing it for the BJP,” he said.
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Gandhi alleged that the ECI did not cooperate with Congress’s efforts to probe the matter, forcing the party to undertake its own investigation. “We had suspicion of voter theft, and we got into its granularity. Since the Election Commission was not helpful in the investigation, we did our own. It took six months and the things we found are an ‘Atom Bomb’ and when this atom bomb explodes you won’t see an Election Commission in the country,” he added.
The political row over voter integrity now intensifies amid ongoing scrutiny of the electoral process in the country.
