Not scared of EC officials, poll body indulging in 'vote chori' through SIR: Rahul

Aurangabad: In a scathing attack on the Election Commission after its press conference, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said the poll body is colluding with the BJP to carry out "vote chori openly" in the name of Special Intensive Revision in Bihar and asserted that he is not sacred of EC officials.

Addressing a gathering here at the end of the first day of his Voter Adhikar Yatra which began from Bihar's Sasaram this afternoon, Gandhi also said while he was asked to submit an affidavit after his press conference exposing "vote chori", no such demand was made from BJP leader Anurag Thakur who made similar claims in his presser.

The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha also alleged that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar was a way to steal votes of the people of the state.

He alleged that the Modi government brought in a law in 2023 to ensure that no one can take action against an election commissioner as the EC is "helping" the BJP and "indulging in vote chori" along with them.

"Today they (EC) held a press conference. I want to ask them why did the government change the law on CCTV footage of election process.

"Do you know that no case can be initiated against the election commissioner. In no court in India can there be a case against the election commissioner. This law was made in 2023. Why was this law made? It was made because Narendra Modi and Amit Shah want to ensure that no one can take any action against the EC as it is helping them and is indulging in voter chori along with them," Gandhi said.

He asserted that the I.N.D.I.A. bloc will not let "vote chori" happen in Bihar.

Gandhi said that it is a fight to protect Ambedkar's Constitution and the principle of 'one person, one vote'.

"The EC declared living people dead, those who have voted in previous polls, their names have been deleted. I asked a person why 'your name was removed, he said there is an order from above, whose order, Narendra Modi and EC'. They have deleted the votes of 65 lakh people, why? Because they want to help Adani and Ambani, they want to steal your money," Gandhi said.

The former Congress president alleged that after taking away land and resources of the people, "now they want to take away the last thing that is left with you, the right to vote", he said.

"The EC is doing this openly. They say 'we will delete voters and not show you the voter list'. But we will show you the power of the people of Bihar," Gandhi said while addressing the gathering.

"Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and the people of EC must hear this, neither am I scared of you nor Teajshwi Yadav and Bihar. We will put forward the truth of vote chori before everyone," he asserted.

He urged the people to fight for the right to vote and the Constitution.

Later, in a post in Hindi on X, Gandhi said, "EC declared living people dead. EC also removed from the voter list those people who had just voted in the Lok Sabha elections. EC once again refused to give digital, machine-readable voter rolls. EC is now making excuses after excuses for not giving CCTV footage." "Earlier vote theft was done stealthily, now it is being done openly in the name of SIR," he said.

In his remarks at the end of day 1 of the Voter Adhikar Yatra, Gandhi also said they started the yatra in Bihar with a purpose.

"For some years people had suspected that their is some fraud in the polls and stealing of elections is taking place. In Maharashtra, while we won the Lok Sabha polls, just four months later the BJP swept the assembly polls," Gandhi said.

"When we investigated, we found that between the Lok Sabha and assembly polls, one crore voters were added by the Election Commission through magic," he said.

And wherever new voters were added, the BJP won, he added.

"Our votes did not go down and remained the same. The BJP got all the new votes. We asked the EC to explain to us where did these one crore voters come from but they refused. We asked them to give CCTV footage and they refused. We asked for machine-readable voter list but they refused," he said.

Gandhi said they then selected the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat and under it got analysed one assembly segment data.

"We took four months and found out that the Bangalore Central seat was stolen by the BJP and and EC," he said and claimed that one lakh voters were found to be fake.

"EC asks me to submit an affidavit but when Anurag Thakur says the same thing that I have said, it does not ask for an affidavit from him," he said.

Gandhi claimed that the EC got to know that I.N.D.I.A. bloc has found out how 'vote chori' happens and then they came up with a new tactic of SIR.

Earlier, addressing a press conference in Delhi, Chief Election Commissioner Gynaesh Kumar said the electoral roll revision is aimed at removing all shortcomings in voter lists and it is a matter of grave concern that some parties are spreading misinformation about it and firing from the EC's shoulder .

The CEC rejected as "baseless" the allegations of double voting and "vote theft" and asserted that all stakeholders are working to make SIR a success in a transparent manner.