NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday hit back at Lok Sabha leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi and other INDIA bloc parties over their repeated use of the term “vote chori,” saying such “dirty phrases” were aimed at creating a false narrative.
The poll body called it a direct attack on crores of Indian voters and an assault on the integrity of lakhs of election staff .
The ECI stressed that the “One Person, One Vote” law has been in place since India’s first elections in 1951-52.
The poll body said anyone with proof of a person voting twice should submit it to the commission with a sworn affidavit, instead of branding all voters as “chor” without evidence.
On August 7, Rahul Gandhi ran through a presentation at a press conference in New Delhi, where he alleged large-scale " vote chori " (vote theft) in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly segment, claiming over 1 lakh votes were "stolen" through methods such as duplicate entries, fake addresses, and bulk registrations at single addresses.
"Our internal polling predicted 16 Lok Sabha seats for Congress in Karnataka; we won nine. In Mahadevapura alone, we found 100,250 votes stolen in five different ways," Gandhi had said, presenting what he called Congress’s internal analysis of voting patterns.
Later, the election commission asked Rahul Gandhi to submit a formal declaration supporting his "vote chori" (vote theft) claim, along with the names of electors allegedly wrongfully included in the voter list, in order to initiate necessary proceedings.
Reacting to the election commission, Rahul said: "I'm saying it publicly to everybody. Take it as an oath. This is their data, and we are displaying their data. This is not our data".
"Interestingly, they haven't denied the information," he further said. "I'm a politician. What I say to the people is my word. I'm saying it publicly to everybody. Take it as an oath. This is their data, and we are displaying their data. This is not our data. This is Election Commission data. Interestingly, they haven't denied the information. They haven't told the voter list that Rahul Gandhi is talking about are wrong. Why don't you say they wrong? Because you know the truth. You know that we know that you have done this across the country," the Congress leader told news agency ANI.
The poll body called it a direct attack on crores of Indian voters and an assault on the integrity of lakhs of election staff .
The ECI stressed that the “One Person, One Vote” law has been in place since India’s first elections in 1951-52.
The poll body said anyone with proof of a person voting twice should submit it to the commission with a sworn affidavit, instead of branding all voters as “chor” without evidence.
On August 7, Rahul Gandhi ran through a presentation at a press conference in New Delhi, where he alleged large-scale " vote chori " (vote theft) in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly segment, claiming over 1 lakh votes were "stolen" through methods such as duplicate entries, fake addresses, and bulk registrations at single addresses.
"Our internal polling predicted 16 Lok Sabha seats for Congress in Karnataka; we won nine. In Mahadevapura alone, we found 100,250 votes stolen in five different ways," Gandhi had said, presenting what he called Congress’s internal analysis of voting patterns.
Later, the election commission asked Rahul Gandhi to submit a formal declaration supporting his "vote chori" (vote theft) claim, along with the names of electors allegedly wrongfully included in the voter list, in order to initiate necessary proceedings.
Reacting to the election commission, Rahul said: "I'm saying it publicly to everybody. Take it as an oath. This is their data, and we are displaying their data. This is not our data".
"Interestingly, they haven't denied the information," he further said. "I'm a politician. What I say to the people is my word. I'm saying it publicly to everybody. Take it as an oath. This is their data, and we are displaying their data. This is not our data. This is Election Commission data. Interestingly, they haven't denied the information. They haven't told the voter list that Rahul Gandhi is talking about are wrong. Why don't you say they wrong? Because you know the truth. You know that we know that you have done this across the country," the Congress leader told news agency ANI.
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