Rahul Gandhi Alleges EC, BJP Colluded to Win Elections

New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused the Election Commission of colluding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to "steal elections", calling it a crime against the Constitution. Citing an internal analysis of electoral data from Karnataka's Bangalore Central constituency during the 2024 general elections, Gandhi alleged large-scale voter list manipulation and demanded judicial intervention.

Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said the Congress had assembled a team and gathered what he termed “concrete evidence of vote chori” over the past six months. He alleged that if the Election Commission failed to provide machine-readable voter lists from the past 10 to 15 years and CCTV footage of polling stations, it would amount to complicity in electoral fraud.

Gandhi said that in Bangalore Central, the Congress polled 6,26,208 votes while the BJP secured 6,58,915 votes, a difference of 32,707 votes. Despite winning six of the seven assembly segments in the constituency, the Congress lost the seat due to a margin of over 1.14 lakh votes in Mahadevapura. He claimed the data analysis revealed 1,00,250 suspicious votes in the constituency, including thousands of duplicate entries, fake addresses, invalid photographs, and bulk registrations.

He alleged that similar discrepancies were being orchestrated nationwide and described it as a coordinated effort to undermine democracy. He said the Election Commission, instead of protecting electoral integrity, was enabling its subversion.

Gandhi further alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi retained power with a slender majority by winning 25 Lok Sabha seats with margins under 33,000 votes. He claimed these results suggested targeted manipulation in key constituencies. According to him, the ruling party’s ability to escape anti-incumbency and the consistent failure of exit polls and internal surveys pointed to larger systemic issues.

He questioned the credibility of the electoral process, noting that the idea of "one person, one vote' was under threat. He said the authenticity of voter lists must be scrutinised to ensure that only eligible voters were casting their ballots.

Referring to the conduct of elections, Gandhi remarked that polls were now being choreographed and prolonged unnecessarily. He criticised changes in electoral laws that, according to him, restricted transparency, including the denial of access to CCTV footage and machine-readable electoral rolls.

He concluded by stating that the Congress would continue to press the Election Commission to fulfil its constitutional duty of safeguarding democracy. He also called upon the judiciary to step in and address what he described as a serious erosion of democratic norms.