Will prove Modi became PM by stealing votes, urge Karnataka govt to probe 'theft': Rahul Gandhi

'It took us six months to bring out the truth about one seat. If you don’t give us data, then we can do this work in 10, 20 and 25 other seats. You can’t hide this', the Congress leader warned EC.

Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday asked his party’s government in Karnataka to investigate the inclusion of bogus voters in the state, and vowed to prove that Narendra Modi became prime minister by “stealing votes”.

Addressing the ‘Our Vote, Our Right, Our Fight’ protest rally at Freedom Park here, Rahul reiterated his demand that the EC must release machine-readable voter lists and videography records for the last 10 years.

Rahul said the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka was “stolen” and called it a “criminal act” against citizens.

“The Karnataka government must investigate this crime and take action. Election Commission officers who added thousands of fake people into the voter list must be questioned and bring out the truth of Mahadevapura,” Rahul said.

“If we get electronic data, we’ll prove that (Modi) became India’s PM by stealing votes. The EC must immediately hand over data to us,” Rahul said, reiterating his charge that Modi is the PM “with a margin of just 25 seats” where he said the BJP won by just 34,000 votes.

Rahul has claimed that 1,00,250 votes were “stolen” in the Mahadevapura assembly segment. The Congress’ investigation claims that duplicate voters (11,965), those with fake or invalid addresses (40,009), bulk voters in a single address (10,452), with invalid photos (4,132) and misuse of Form-6 for first-time voters (33,692) at Mahadevapura helped BJP win in Bangalore Central.

“In Karnataka, I can say that more than one seat was stolen. We’ve proven the theft in one seat,” Rahul said. “We should have won 15-16 seats in Karnataka. But we won only nine,” he said.

“The Constitution's foundational idea of ‘one person, one vote’ is being attacked by EC officials. This amounts to attacking the Constitution. If you think you can attack the Constitution and get away, then think again,” Rahul warned.

Rahul said it took six months for his team to collect “evidence of crime” in Bangalore Central. “We compared one photo with lakhs of photographs. We checked every name. We believe that India’s entire election data is evidence. If that’s destroyed, then evidence is being destroyed and furthering a crime,” he said.

Citing the Maharashtra example, Rahul said Congress and its allies did well during the Lok Sabha polls. “Four months later, the BJP won the Assembly election there, which was a surprising result. One crore new voters magically appeared in the Assembly election. Wherever the new voters were, the BJP won,” he said.

Rahul warned the EC that it cannot escape. “It took us six months to bring out the truth about one seat. If you don’t give us data, then we can do this work in 10, 20 and 25 other seats. You can’t hide this. You can’t run away from this,” Rahul warned. “One day, you’ll have to face the Opposition.”

This, Rahul said, might take time. “But we’ll catch you...every one of you. Remember my words.”