KALABURAGI : Aland MLA BR Patil (Congress) invited Justices SN Dhingra, Nirmal Kumar and other signatories who have written an open letter to Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, defending the Election Commission of India on vote theft charges, to visit the Aland Assembly constituency and see for themselves if Rahul’s allegations are false.
Patil told the media on Monday that he has written to these dignitaries that he is ready to bear all their expenses if they can prove that Rahul and him were making false charges of “vote chori”. “I am an elected representative of Aland and a vote chori campaign was attempted against me. My observations come from the ground, having examined evidence and hearing witnesses,” he wrote in his letter.
Patil said he challenges all the 272 signatories to face people who almost lost their votes. “See the evidence of organised deletion with your own eyes. Then explain to the victims and the rest of the country why you defended the system instead of defending the voter,” he added.
“Your letter avoids any specifics of the evidence of Vote Chori - whether it was in Mahadevapura, Aland, Rajura, Haryana or Bihar. During the 2023 elections, as the Indian National Congress candidate for Aland, with the help of party workers, I identified over 6,000 requests for deletion of voters which had been filed in a few weeks. Neither the voters targeted, nor the people in whose names the applications had been filed had any idea that this was happening.
I along with Priyank Kharge alerted the Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer. Official ground level verification found that of the 6,018 deletion requests, 5,994 were forged and the Returning Officer filed an FIR, and we managed to stop over 6,000 voters from being unfairly deleted from the rolls.
Did any of you examine Aland and decide that the organised effort to delete 6,000 voters was minor? Did you examine the facts and decide to ignore this systematic operation targeting Dalit and minority voters,” Patil asked in his letter.
“You speak of trust in the Election Commission. But ECI has taken no proactive step to identify those who misused its systems. ECI has also blocked the Karnataka CID from investigating the FIR. They have shared evidence, but refused to provide crucial information that will identify the devices and people used to conduct vote chori,” Patil alleged.
“Rahul Gandhi did not create doubts about ECI in people’s hearts and minds. They already existed in them. He only exposed the fraud and placed it before the nation. Institutions whose duty is to protect the system have shut their doors on the truth and people can see this clearly,” he added.
“If your letter was truly independent and honest, you should have no fear in accepting my invitation to visit Aland. Otherwise, your letter stands exposed as biased and disconnected from reality,” Patil stated in his letter.