Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has released yet another piece of evidence that the Central Election Commission is colluding with the ruling party to thwart the will of the people through vote theft. Shocking new evidence of ‘vote chori’ (vote theft) was unveiled at a press conference held at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi on Thursday. The revelations show that many people were removed from the voter list without their knowledge, with the help of software. In the Aland assembly constituency in Karnataka, 6,018 votes were tampered with using mobile numbers from outside the state and other means. This is happening in a booth with a higher voter turnout for the Congress. The new modus operandi is that, without the knowledge of voters, ‘strangers’ submit fake applications to remove their names from the list and the commission immediately honours them. Rahul has exposed such a scam that took place at booth 46 in the constituency. In 14 minutes, 12 people were removed. The voter ID of Suryakant was used for this. Rahul amplified the allegations by bringing to the press conference Suryakant, whose name was removed from the voter list without his knowledge, and Babita, a woman whose vote was lost in the operation. It is clear that the aim was to create a favorable environment for the BJP by systematically removing Congress voters in Aland. However, the state government uncovered the matter and launched a CID investigation. Rahul Gandhi's intervention comes after the Election Commission failed to cooperate with the investigation even after a year. Although the Election Commission has rejected the allegations, it has not been able to refute the claims made by Rahul with the same authenticity.
This is the second time in 40 days that Rahul Gandhi has presented evidence of voter fraud. Earlier, the Congress had alleged rigging in the Maharashtra state assembly elections held after the Lok Sabha elections of 2024. When the BJP and the Election Commission mockingly rejected this allegation, Rahul held a press conference on 7 August with concrete and clear evidence. He showed how elections in the country are being rigged with the connivance of the Election Commission using technological means. The press conference was about the inclusion of more than one lakh fake votes in Mahadevapura, one of the seven assembly constituencies in the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka. His presentation provided a comprehensive account of the commission's vote addition through various artificial means, like one person having vote in two or three constituencies, anonymous voters without addresses, more than fifty voters at a single address, and underage voters. In the last Lok Sabha elections, Bengaluru Central was won by the BJP by 32,707 votes. In Mahadevapura, where the subversion took place, the BJP's majority was 1.14 lakh. In other words, had the Commission not helped in adding the fake votes, the BJP would have lost the constituency. The Election Commission's response to the evidence released by Rahul was very strange. Before that press conference was over, the Commission's representatives reached the Congress headquarters. They also issued a missive asking him to testifying to the allegations and provide a detailed explanation to the Commission within four days. Add to this the fact that vote details have disappeared from the Commission's website in the next days, and the picture becomes clear. Now, here is new evidence. When it comes to Aland from Mahadevapura, the pattern of the ‘vote chori’ has changed. While in Mahadevapura votes in favor of the ruling party were artificially created, in Aland votes expected to go to the opposition parties were removed using technology.
The question of how independent the Election Commission is, has been before us for years. By subverting even the appointment process of the Commission, the Modi government has made the selection of the head of a constitutional institution, which is supposed to function completely independently, a matter of political conformity. Naturally, it is clear whom the Commission will work for. Before the Lok Sabha elections, the suspicions raised by the Congress regarding the voting machines still remain. The questions raised before the Commission by people like Jairam Ramesh have not yet received a satisfactory answer. The Commission tried to bog them down in the technicalities of court proceedings. What happened in Aland is no different. The ‘vote chori’ in Aland was detected two years ago and the state government filed a case. However, the Election Commission was not ready to cooperate with the investigation. Despite repeated requests from the investigation team for the ‘destination IP’, ‘device destination port’, and ‘OTP trails’ to trace voters who logged in from outside Karnataka and committed crimes, only partial information was provided. It is clear why the Commission, which is obliged to cooperate with the investigation agency, would hold back such information. This is what Rahul Gandhi has also revealed. Rahul's revelations establish how the INDIA alliance, which had won a big victory in the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra, was defeated in the Assembly elections held months later, and how the BJP, which had lost the Assembly elections in Karnataka, was winning in the Lok Sabha elections. It remains to be seen whether the questions raised by Rahul will turn into political battles.