NEW DELHI: Over a month after making his ‘atom bomb’ claims against the Election Commission of India (ECI) over vote theft in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura Assembly segment, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Thursday alleged large-scale irregularities in the state’s Aland constituency.
He said that 6,018 voter names were allegedly deleted in a systematic manner using software.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi, Gandhi launched a blistering attack on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar accusing him of protecting the ‘vote thieves’ and demanded that the ECI must release evidence to the Karnataka CID within a week.
"ECI must stop protecting vote thieves. They should release all incriminating evidence to the Karnataka CID within a week," he said.
Gandhi added that although the Karnataka CID had sent 18 letters in 18 months to the ECI seeking destination IPs, device ports and OTP trails of the fake Form 7 applications, the poll body has not responded so far.
Presenting evidence of vote theft in Aland, he claimed that the deletions were targeted in the top 10 booths where Congress holds strong influence and had won 8 of them.
Gandhi said that an automated program chose the first name from each booth to delete votes, with mobile numbers from outside the state used to file fake applications.
“The fraud was exposed by chance when a booth-level officer discovered that even her uncle’s vote had been fraudulently deleted from the rolls. Voter names were deleted using software, citing fake form 7 applications,” he said.
“Someone has set up a centralized criminal operation to steal elections. In Aland, this operation filed 6018 deleted applications by impersonating voters using automated filling of online EC forms,” he said, adding that mobile numbers from outside Karnataka were used in the operation.
The Congress leader further invited Karnataka resident Suryakant to the stage to present the evidence.
Suryakant said that his identity was used to delete 12 voters in 14 minutes. However, he had no knowledge of the fact that his phone number had been used to delete the voter name.
Gandhi alleged that a fake login under the name ‘Godabai’ was used to delete 12 votes. He also played a video, where Godabai’ denied any knowledge of it.
“Someone ran an automated programme that ensured the first voter of the booth was the applicant,” he said.
Gandhi cited another example of Nagaraj, who filled two form 7 applications for deletions and submitted them in 36 seconds. “Humanly impossible,” said Gandhi.
Similarly, mass deletion of voters has happened in Maharashtra, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, he said.
Millions of names of voters belonging to communities such as Dalits, adivasis, minorities, and OBCs have been deliberately deleted from the voters’ list. “There is a systematic targeting of voters who vote for the opposition parties,” he said.
'Information from inside EC'
In another revelation, Gandhi said that he is getting help from people in the ECI in exposing the voter roll irregularities across the country.
“Information has now started coming from inside EC on vote theft,” Gandhi said.
"I want to say that we are now getting information from inside the Election Commission, this was not happening before, but now we are getting information from inside ECI, and this is not going to stop. People will not accept this. Once the youth becomes aware that vote theft is happening, they will rise in anger," said Gandhi.
Though the press conference was expected to be on Gandhi's 'hydrogen bomb' expose on alleged vote theft, the Congress leader clarified that he would soon drop it and the preparations are on in this regard.
“This press conference is not about the hydrogen bomb. It will happen soon. I will present it with solid proof. I have told my team that I will go on to the stage only with substantial evidence,” said Gandhi
The Congress leader further said that he will expose the ‘mastermind’ behind the ‘vote theft’.