Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday alleged that the Election Commission is facilitating "vote chori" (vote theft) for the ruling BJP and likened the "open and shut" evidence the party claimed to have collected to an "atom bomb".
As I.N.D.I.A. parties continued to protest against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar and other states and stalled Parliament for another day, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha also warned serving and retired EC officials from "top to bottom" who have "committed treason" by indulging in such vote theft will be identified and dealt with.
The EC said it "ignores such baseless allegations being made on a daily basis" and "despite the threats being issued every day", the poll body was urging all election personnel who are working in a fair and transparent manner "not to pay attention to such irresponsible statements".
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju also hit back at Rahul claiming that resorting to "dangerous behaviour" and running a "malicious campaign" to discredit constitutional bodies like the EC. "When they (Congress) win elections, everything is hunky dory. But, when they lose elections, the Election Commission is to blame. This is a conspiracy to weaken democracy," he said.
"I have said vote theft is happening, and now we have open-and-shut proof that the EC is involved in vote theft. I am not saying this lightly. I am saying it with 100 per cent proof. Everyone will come to know... as soon as we release this, the entire country will know that the EC is facilitating voter theft. For whom? For the BJP. It is open and shut, no question about it," Rahul told reporters.
He said they had suspicions in Madhya Pradesh during the Lok Sabha elections. "In Maharashtra, it went a bit further and, at the state level, we felt that theft had occurred, that voter additions had taken place. One crore voters were added. Then we went a bit deeper. We said, look, the EC is not helping, so we need to go into more granularity, into more depth,” he said.
"We conducted our own investigation. It took six months, and what we found is like an atom bomb. I mean it; it is an atom bomb. When it explodes, the EC won’t be able to hide," he said.
He added, "I am saying this very seriously. Whoever is doing this, all right, from the top to the bottom of the EC, remember one thing... No matter what happens, we will not spare you because you are working against India. This is treason and nothing less than that. Remember this, wherever you are, even if you are retired, whatever your position, we will find you and deal with you."
The EC also said it had sent him an email to him on June 12 but he did not respond. “He has never sent any letter to the EC on any issue, whatsoever. It is very strange that he is making wild allegations and has now even started threatening EC and its staff. It is deplorable. The EC ignores all such irresponsible statements and asks all its staff to continue working impartially and transparently,” it said.
On July 24, Rahul had claimed that they have "concrete 100 per cent proof" of cheating in a Karnataka seat where thousands of new voters who are "way above 18 years" were enrolled ahead of the Lok Sabha polls and warned the poll body that it will not get away with this "because we are going to come for you".
Rahul will be leading a protest in Bengaluru on the Karnataka issue on Tuesday and later this month will be travelling to Bihar, where he will hold 'padayatras' campaigning against SIR along with other leaders, including RJD's Tejashwi Yadav.