Rahul Gandhi's criticism of the Election Commission
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi attacked the Election Commission, saying it had failed in safeguarding the integrity of the electoral process. He accused the Election Commission of helping those involved in vote manipulation and weakening democracy by its acts. During a media briefing on alleged vote theft, Rahul Gandhi claimed that large-scale irregularities took place in the Haryana elections.
He accused the BJP leaders of misusing various means to manipulate about 25 lakh votes. He said that about 12.5 percent of the total votes were fake. He also mentioned that a Brazilian model's photo was used to cast 22 fake votes under different names, ages, and genders, such as Seema, Sweety, and Saraswati.
Allegations of Fake Voters and Manipulated Votes
Rahul Gandhi alleged that Haryana has more than five lakh fake voters. He claimed that one in every eight votes in the state is not genuine. He added that over one lakh votes were linked to fake photographs and that two polling booths had 223 votes showing the same photo.
Further, Gandhi said that about 93,000 votes had been registered with incorrect addresses. He accused election officials of adding votes for certain people. According to him, these were the reasons behind the defeat of the Congress party in the Haryana elections, despite the fact that exit polls showed the win of the Congress party.
Questions on the Role of the Election Commission
The Congress leader also questioned the role of the Election Commission during the elections. He said the EC has software tools to identify duplicate voters, yet more than five lakh fake voters appeared on the list. Rahul Gandhi argued that the EC could have removed them quickly if it had acted responsibly.
He blamed the Election Commission for failing to identify these problems, which only benefited the BJP. Rahul also accused that thousands of those who voted in Uttar Pradesh also cast votes in Haryana. He added that hundreds of fake votes were registered at the addresses of the BJP leaders. Gandhi wanted to know if people linked with the BJP could vote in several places across the country.
