Mounting a scathing attack on Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused the CEC of “protecting” those who are “destroying” Indian democracy by refusing to share technical details of persons behind an attempt to delete names of voters from the electoral rolls of an Assembly seat in Karnataka.

The Election Commission of India (EC) rejected the Congress leader’s allegations as “incorrect and baseless”.

Mr. Gandhi said that 6,018 votes were sought to be deleted in the Aland constituency using a centralised software and mobile phones registered outside Karnataka. In the past 18 months, the State’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has written 18 letters to the poll body, seeking details of the IP addresses used to fill online applications for voter deletions, but the EC has not responded, he said.

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The poll body must stop protecting “vote chors (thieves)” and provide information sought by the Karnataka CID within a week, Mr. Gandhi said, adding that if the EC does not oblige, it will be known for being “complicit in the murder of the Constitution”.

“I am going to make a serious claim about Gyanesh Kumar. I am not saying this lightly, I am the Leader of Opposition. The CEC is protecting vote chors and the people who have destroyed Indian democracy,” Mr. Gandhi said, adding, “Our demand is Gyanesh Kumar, do your job, you have taken an oath, you are India’s Chief Election Commissioner, you must give evidence to the Karnataka CID.”

In a subsequent post on X, Mr. Gandhi said the CEC should stop giving “excuses” and said had the alleged “vote theft” not been caught, the Congress candidate would have lost the Assembly seat. 

Rahul Gandhi’s ‘hydrogen bomb’ revelation on voter theft LIVE

Recently, The Hindu had reported on the Karnataka CID’s probe into a systematic attempt to remove names of 5,994 voters from electoral rolls by forging Form 7 in the Aland constituency of Kalaburagi district ahead of the 2023 Assembly election.

Before making a detailed presentation on the Aland seat, Mr. Gandhi clarified that that these revelations were not the “hydrogen bomb” that he had talked about earlier and promised that too will come soon. “I am just creating the foundation. This is going on for 10-15 years. India’s democracy has been hijacked. Democracy can only be saved by the people of India. Rahul Gandhi can show the truth. The day the people realise that their democracy and Constitution have been stolen, the job will be done,” he said.

Elaborating on the attempted voter deletions in Aland, the Congress leader alleged that the top 10 booths with maximum deletion applications were Congress strongholds. Citing examples, he said, in one case, someone had used the name of a 63-year-old woman Godabai to apply for 12 deletions and then played out a video in which she denied having anything to do with such an application.

Mr. Gandhi called on stage a voter, Suryakant, whose identity was used to apply for 12 deletions in 14 minutes, but the Karnataka resident said he had no knowledge of it.

The Congress leader gave the example of Maharashtra’s Rajura constituency where he claimed 6,850 voters were added in a fraudulent manner using automated software.

“We are pretty sure that this is being done using a software at a call centre,” he said, adding, “Same system is doing this. It is doing it in Karnataka, Maharashtra, it has done it Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and we have proof of it”.

ECI is not giving details to Karnataka CID, says Rahul Gandhi

The poll panel is not giving the details because it will lead to where this operation is being conducted, Mr. Gandhi said. “EC knows who is doing this. I want every youngster in India to know this. They are doing this to your future. When they are not giving this information, they are defending the murderers of democracy,” he said.

Mr. Gandhi said it will take two-three months for the research and presentations on alleged “vote chori”. “When we are done with these presentations, you will have no doubt in your mind that state after state (elections) and Lok Sabha after Lok Sabha are being stolen. My job is to lay bare the truth and show it to the people of the country,” he added.

Last month, citing data from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress leader had claimed that over one lakh votes were “stolen” through manipulation in Mahadevapura assembly segment in Karnataka.