Election Commission seeks declaration under oath from Rahul Gandhi over 'vote chori' allegations in Karnataka

The Election Commission of India on Thursday sought Rahul Gandhi's declaration over allegations of irregularities in the voter list in the Mahadevpur Constituency of Karnataka.

The ECI, through the Karnataka CEO, has asked Rahul Gandhi to provide the details of irregularities in the voter list under oath by today. The poll panel also warns that providing “false evidence” is punishable under Section 227 of BNS.

The CEO has also said that the election of MPs in Karnataka held in 2024 cannot be challenged now, as the election petition window is over.

Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday cited an analysis of data from a Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka from the 2024 general elections to allege that the Election Commission is colluding with the BJP to "steal elections" and called it a "crime" against the Constitution.

Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said the Congress put together a team and collected "concrete evidence of vote chori" in six months.

If the EC does not give us machine-readable data for the past 10-15 years and the CCTV footage, they are partaking in the crime, Gandhi said.

"The judiciary needs to get involved in this because the democracy that we love so much does not exist," the former Congress president said.

Gandhi said they analysed the voter data of Lok Sabha constituency of Bangalore Central and the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in it from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

He said in the whole Lok Sabha seat, the Congress got 6,26,208 votes while the BJP got 6,58,915, a margin of 32,707.

Gandhi pointed out that while the Congress won six out of seven segments, it lost in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment, where it was defeated by over 1,14,000 votes.

(With agency inputs)