PATNA: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday triggered a political firestorm by alleging that the BJP began stealing votes for the first time in Gujarat, much before repeating the tactic at the national level in the 2014 general election.
Addressing “Samajik Adhikar Samvad” here, Gandhi claimed the BJP committed vote theft in every state, adding the theft was, however, caught when they did it on a massive scale in Maharashtra and Haryana.
He claimed that after he disclosed how vote theft was committed in an Assembly segment in Karnataka, no BJP leader, including the Prime Minister, responded to his allegations.
Gandhi said, “When Union Home Minister Amit Shah claimed a few years ago that the BJP government would be in power for 40-50 years, I found his statement surprising. But he can say so as his party is stealing votes.”
He said a new law was enacted in 2023 to see that no case (judicial action) could be taken against the Election Commission, and alleged it was done to ensure that the BJP could steal votes with impunity.