BENGALURU: Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, who claimed to have made an expose on the alleged voter theft by the BJP in the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha seat during the 2024 LS polls, on Thursday in New Delhi launched a massive protest rally organised by the KPCC at Freedom Park here on Friday.
His counterpart in the Rajya Sabha and AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge called on party workers to engage in a “do or die” battle, on the lines of the Quit India Movement, to oust the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre, alleging that it came to power by “stealing votes.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah urged that Modi should resign from his post as he allegedly does not have the moral right to continue.
After the rally, the Congress leaders had planned to present a memorandum to the ECI here but changed their strategy. On Monday, the INDIA alliance MPs will be visiting the ECI in New Delhi to send out a message that they are united in the fight against the alleged voter theft.
Continuing his tirade against the Election Commission of India (ECI) and alleging that it colluded with the BJP in the voter theft, Rahul Gandhi asserted that the exposé he made was “100 per cent true” and posed a challenge to the Commission.
“If it can provide me with ten years of electronic voter lists and videography of the polling stations, I will prove voter theft in more LS seats across the country,” he said.
“BJP’s ideology is against the Constitution, which is the weapon of the poor and downtrodden people. Congress workers will defend it at any cost. EC should give us the electronic voter list of the last 10 years, as well as the videography. If they don’t give this data, it will mean they are helping the BJP in vote theft,” he alleged, while flaunting a copy of the Constitution.
He also hit back at the Commission for asking him to file an affidavit. “The Election Commission asks me for an affidavit. They say I have to take an oath. I have taken an oath on the Constitution in Parliament. Today, when the people of the country are asking questions about our data, the Election Commission has shut down the website in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. The Election Commission knows that if the public starts asking them questions, their entire structure will collapse,” he stated.
“In the last elections, we had protected the Constitution. This book embodies an ideology shaped over a thousand years; it echoes the voices of Mahatma Gandhi, Babasaheb Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, as well as those of Basavanna, Narayan Guru and Phule ji. The foundation of the Constitution is – one person, one vote. This Constitution gives every Indian citizen the right of one vote. In the previous elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders made an assault on the Constitution. The Constitution was attacked through the destruction of the institutions of the country,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi claimed that in Maharashtra, the INDIA alliance won the LS polls but the BJP won the Assembly polls held four months later. “It was a surprising result. We got to know that 1 crore new voters had voted in the Maharashtra Assembly elections. Wherever these new voters emerged, BJP won. Our alliance’s vote share did not decrease; we got the same votes that we got in the LS elections. All the new votes went to BJP. That day, we realised something was wrong,” he elaborated.
He added that in Karnataka, the Congress party’s internal survey predicted 16 LS seats, but the party won only 9. “So, we started asking questions about whether we actually lost these seats. We asked the Election Commission for the digital voter list, but it refused. It also didn’t give us the videography, and changed the law to limit the time for retaining CCTV footage to 45 days,” he pointed out.
“When we didn’t get help from the EC, we started an investigation on our own and chose the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in Bangalore Central LS seat. Yesterday, I proved it 100 per cent — BJP and EC colluded to steal votes. There are 6.5 lakh votes in Mahadevapura Assembly segment, out of which 1,00,250 votes were stolen. This implies that one out of every six votes was stolen,” he alleged.
He listed five alleged methods used to steal votes: one person voting at multiple booths, with 11,965 such voters found in lists of different states; creating about 40,000 votes through fake or invalid addresses, with bulk voters (up to 80 people) shown as living in one-bedroom houses owned by BJP leaders, totalling 10,452 such voters; creating 4,132 voters through invalid or unrecognisable photos; and misusing Form 6, meant for first-time voters, to create about 34,000 voters aged up to 80–90 years.
He alleged that the EC and BJP together stole more than one lakh votes in the Bengaluru Central LS seat. “We demand that EC provide us the electronic voter list of the entire country, and election-related videography records. If they provide us this data, we will prove that seats have not only been stolen in Karnataka, but across the whole country. If EC gives us electronic data, we will prove that Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister by stealing votes. Modi is PM because of a margin of just 25 seats. We have proven that one LS seat in Karnataka was stolen. Notably, the BJP won 25 seats with margins of less than 35,000 votes,” he said.
He came down heavily on the EC, accusing it of attacking the constitutional foundation of “one person, one vote” and the rights of poor people. “If they think they can get away with this, I want to tell them — it’ll take time, but we will catch each one of you, one by one. If you attack the Constitution, we’ll attack you; the Constitution is the voice of India,” he warned.
“The whole country should ask why EC is not providing the voters’ list in a digital, machine-readable format to the people of India, and why it is destroying the video evidence. I am Leader of Opposition, but I am not the only one saying this. All Opposition leaders are asking the same questions,” he added.
Rahul Gandhi also suggested that the Congress government led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah should investigate the alleged voter theft. “Karnataka government should investigate vote theft in Mahadevapura and take action against the EC officials who put fake people in the voter list. The truth should be found out,” he advised, adding, “It took us six months to find the truth of one Assembly segment in an LS seat. If EC doesn’t give us data, we can do the same thing in other seats as well. We do have paper copies. The EC cannot hide the truth, and it cannot hide itself. One day, it will have to face the Opposition. Every election officer should understand that. It’s a criminal act against the people.”
“The data we have in Mahadevapura is evidence of a crime. It took us six months to collect this evidence; every name was verified, every photo was matched. We believe that India’s election data itself is evidence, and if anyone destroys that, it will mean they are destroying the evidence and perpetuating the crime,” he said.
