Rahul Gandhi gestures during a a protest march by I.N.D.I.A. bloc MPs.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: As Election Commission repeated its demand that Rahul Gandhi should sign an oath along with his claims of 'vote-theft', the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha on Monday said it is an attempt to "distract" from the issue and asked why should he sign an oath when the data is of the EC and not his.
Insisting that the Opposition is protesting for the right to vote for every Indian and demanded a "clean and pure" voter list, Rahul said the 'vote chori' issue will "explode" soon as it is not related to a single constituency but the whole country.
Rahul said the issue he raised is not limited to the one seat of Bangalore Central in Karnataka and it extends to various Lok Sabha seats in the country while claiming that the EC knows that its data does not hold and it is trying to hide it.
"It's their (EC) data. It's not my data that I'll sign (an oath). We've given them their data. Put that data on your website and you'll get to know it. All this is just to distract from the issue. This has not just taken place in Bengaluru but several other constituencies in the country," he said.
"The Election Commission knows that its data does not hold and it will explode. We will expose the data which they are trying to hide," he told reporters in Parliament House after he was released from detention following a protest march to the poll body protesting against 'vote chori' (vote theft).
Since his press conference last week when he claimed that there were around one lakh fake voters in Mahadevapura Assembly constituency during Lok Sabha polls, the EC had asked him to submit his claims by signing an oath.
Besides Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer, the Maharashtra and Haryana CEOs also demanded similar oaths as he mentioned "irregularities" in voters' list in both the states.
The EC sources have been maintaining that Rahul should apologise to the nation if he is unwilling to sign the oath.