NEW DELHI: Following through on his claim of “atom bomb evidence of voter manipulation” in favour of governing BJP, Congress’ Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said over one lakh voters were downright fake in Mahadevapura assembly seat that BJP swept to narrowly win Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency in 2024. There are eight segments in the LS seat.He accused EC of colluding with BJP to “destroy Indian democracy and steal elections”, and argued that if EC now does not provide electronic voters’ data of 10-15 years and CCTV footage, then it is “partaking in crime” since the two are now “evidence of crime”. He urged the judiciary to intervene to save Indian democracy.Addressing a press conference in the form of data point presentation of Congress’ Mahadevapura study, with the national anthem played at the end, Rahul said, “This is a crime being committed against the Constitution, Indian flag… I want the nation to know that there is a huge criminal fraud being perpetrated on India by EC and the party in office.”Citing the study, Rahul claimed BJP won Bangalore Central by 32,707 votes while 1,00,250 fake votes were polled for it. He said fake votes were in five categories – duplicate voters (11,965), fake/invalid addresses (40,009), bulk voters in one address (10,452), invalid photos of voters (4,132) and “misuse of Form 6” for becoming first-time voter (33,692). Showing files, he cited examples to assert people have voted multiple times in different booths of the seat, while addresses shown on voters’ lists are like “Street 0”, “House no 0”. He said there were as many as 80 voters shown in one address, even 50 in one-bedroom house, while attempts to cross-check resulted in beating up of researchers or confirmation that they did not live there.Rahul said it is famously claimed that first-time voters vote for PM Modi, but Form 6 instances in Mahadevapura showed there were no first-time voters in the 18-23 age group, and instead the age group was in 90s and 50s, etc.“This is how Bangalore Central was stolen. The reason EC does not provide us data is because it is happening across country,” he said, adding, “The difference between (BJP) winning and (Congress) losing in Haryana polls was 22,779 votes, and in one Karnataka assembly seat they have stolen four times of that vote.” He said there is a pattern of BJP winning an LS seat by sweeping a solitary assembly segment, underlining, “Modi is PM by a slender majority of 25 seats.“To a question, Rahul said he is a politician and his word to the people should be taken as an oath, as he mocked EC for asking for it instead of reacting to his presentation by promising to check the information he had provided.Rahul said BJP has built narratives of specific issues influencing elections like Ladli Behna scheme, Pulwama, now Operation Sindoor, and anti-incumbency has eluded BJP. However, he said there were suspicions about BJP’s victories, like in Maharashtra polls after being swept out in LS elections in the state. He said doubts became concrete when EC refused to provide machine-readable voters’ lists, and then showed a surge in voting after 5.30pm while deciding to destroy CCTV footage.
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