Rahul doubles down on his‘vote chori’ allegations

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday accused the Election Commission of not performing its duty of enforcing the ‘one man, one vote’ principle and said “abhi picture baki hai”, alluding to the claims of irregularities in the voters’ list.
At a meeting of Congress general secretaries, in-charges and heads of frontal organisations at the AICC’s 24, Akbar Road office, party sources quoted Gandhi as saying that the Congress lost at least 48 Lok Sabha seats due to “Mahadevpura-like vote chori”. The sources said the party may bring to the fore a series of revelations about “vote chori” in other seats in the near future.
Speaking with reporters in the Parliament House complex, Gandhi asserted that his party is engaged in protecting the Constitution and would continue to do so. “There is not just one seat (where there is ‘vote chori’) but there are a number of seats. This is being done at a national level and systematically. The EC knows it and we know it too,” the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha told reporters.
“Evidence was not there earlier but now there is evidence. We protect the Constitution. ‘One man, one vote’ is the foundation of the Constitution,” Gandhi said. It is the duty of the EC to enforce ‘one man, one vote’ but it has not done its duty, Gandhi alleged.
“So, we are protecting the Constitution and will continue to do so. We will not stop,” he said.
Asked about Minta Devi, a 124-year-old voter allegedly listed in the Election Commission’s voter list from Bihar, Gandhi said, “There are unlimited cases like that. ‘Abhi picture baki hai’.” On Monday, opposition MPs, including Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Sharad Pawar, took out a protest march from the Parliament House to the Election Commission office against the revision of electoral rolls in Bihar and alleged “vote chori”, but they were stopped midway by the police and briefly detained amid high drama. The MPs were later released.
Later, in a post on his WhatsApp channel, Gandhi said, “The Election Commission arrested 300 opposition MPs. This is the state of democracy today! The government and the commission should listen, we are not just public representatives — we are the voice of the people of India, which cannot be suppressed.” he said.
Gandhi also shared short clips of INDIA bloc leaders while they were detained at the Parliament Street police station.
“The theft of votes that is happening is very dangerous for our democracy. We have a clear demand from the EC that it should stop indulging in theft and prepare a fair and clean voter list, so that democracy is saved,” Kharge could be heard saying in a clip.
NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar says in the clip that it is important that the truth comes out before the people.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav says “we will continue to fight for rights and justice despite all hurdles”.
Speaking with reporters in the Parliament House complex on Tuesday, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also claimed that there are several cases in which addresses and names of relatives, etc., are all fake.
Earlier on Tuesday, several MPs of the INDIA bloc parties held a protest in the Parliament House complex against the Election Commission’s voter roll revision in Bihar, with many of them wearing white T-shirts with the name of the “124-year-old voter” allegedly found on Bihar’s voters’ list emblazoned on them.
Congress president Kharge, Congress parliamentary party chief Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Trinamool Congress’ Derek O’Brien, DMK’s T R Baalu, Supriya Sule of the NCP (SP), as well as other opposition MPs from DMK and Left parties gathered near Parliament’s Makar Dwar, holding posters and raising slogans demanding a rollback of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
Congress’ Manickam Tagore alleged that the EC under Rajeev Kumar and Gyanesh Kumar has become a department of the BJP.
“Minta Devi is a first-time voter and she is 124-year-old. The voters’ list carries her name as a first-time voter. We want a discussion on such issues. The EC has become a party of the BJP. The voter list is full of such fraud,” he charged.
There has been a logjam in Parliament over the SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar.
Barring discussions on Operation Sindoor in the two Houses, Parliament has seen little business ever since the Monsoon session began on July 21 due to repeated adjournments, mostly over the SIR issue.
Last Thursday, Gandhi cited data from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to claim that more than 1 lakh votes were “stolen” through five types of manipulation in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment of Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka.