NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India (EC) is being too clever by half by evading crucial questions raised by Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Opposition parties on allegations of voter fraud and manipulation in electoral rolls, said political scientist and activist Yogendra Yadav.
Speaking to this newspaper, Yadav said that Rahul Gandhi has made two serious charges against the EC recently, which the poll panel has yet to answer. “The first charge is that your system is vulnerable to attack, such manipulation from outside that someone whose name is false, whose phone number is false can actually file over 6,000 applications.
The second charge is that the Election Commission is not cooperating in finding out the exact whereabouts and precise location of the person who was doing the fraudulent attempt,” he said referring to Gandhi’s recent allegations that 6,018 voter names were allegedly deleted in Karnataka’s Aland constituency in a systematic manner using centralized software.
Yadav also questioned the veracity of the Election Commission’s claim that no deletion of any vote can be done online by any individual.
“Election Commission says two things. Number one, it says, it is impossible to delete votes online. Then it says, and we were the first ones to lodge an FIR. The simple question is why you lodged an FIR if nothing wrong could be done? If you have filed an FIR, why are you not cooperating with the investigation? asked Yadav.
Although the Karnataka CID sent 18 letters to Election Commission in a span of 18 months seeking destination IPs, device ports and OTP trails of the fake Form 7 applications, the poll body has not responded so far, he pointed out.