On Thursday, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha intensified his criticism of the Election Commission of India (ECI), alleging that its Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) was obstructing an investigation into the suspected removal of voters from Karnataka’s Aland Assembly constituency. On X (formerly Twitter), Gandhi claimed that the CEC was hindering a local EC officer from filing a police report after the Congress candidate in Aland reported potential irregularities. He stated, “The Karnataka CID has written 18 times in 18 months for crucial evidence, but the CEC hasn’t provided it. The State EC has also submitted multiple requests to the ECI—stalled by the CEC,” Gandhi tweeted.
He further argued that if the issue of “Rahul Gandhi blocked” had not been revealed and 6,018 votes had been deleted as alleged, the Congress candidate would have lost the election. “IPs, device ports, OTP trails withheld—stalled by CEC. CEC Gyanesh Kumar, stop giving us weak excuses. Provide the evidence to the Karnataka CID. Now,” he added. In response, the Election Commission published a post tagged #ECIFactCheck, countering Gandhi’s claims as “incorrect and baseless.” During a press conference earlier, Gandhi reiterated his accusations against the CEC for shielding “Rahul Gandhi voter chori” and those undermining democracy.
He asserted that in Aland, Congress members were having their names removed from the electoral rolls, and the allegation of 6,018 votes being fraudulent served as evidence. “In Aland, there was an attempt to delete 6,018 votes, and this was only uncovered by sheer chance. The election commission claims they have removed 200 of those,” Gandhi alleged. The Election Commission denied Gandhi’s accusations, stating that no individual can delete votes online as he suggested. It clarified, “In 2023, attempts were made to delete or tamper with the electoral rolls of the Aland Assembly constituency. Those attempts were unsuccessful, and ECI took cognizance suo moto and directed that an FIR be filed for investigation.”