BENGALURU: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday strongly criticised the Election Commission (EC) for asking him to submit an affidavit under oath, asserting that he had already taken an oath on the Constitution as a Member of Parliament. Reiterating his allegation of electoral fraud, Gandhi accused the EC and the BJP of colluding to manipulate the Lok Sabha election results.
Speaking at the ‘Vote Adhikar Rally’ in Bengaluru, Gandhi said, “The Election Commission is asking me to submit an affidavit under oath. I’ve already taken an oath inside Parliament while holding the Constitution.” He further alleged that when people began questioning the EC using data released by the Congress, the commission responded by taking down its websites.
“The EC websites in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Bihar were shut down because they feared public scrutiny based on actual data. Their entire system would collapse under questioning,” he claimed.
Gandhi urged the Congress-led government in Karnataka to investigate what he called a “crime of stealing an election.” He described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “a Prime Minister with a margin of just 25 Lok Sabha seats” and declared, “If we are given access to electronic voter data nationwide, we will prove that Modi holds office through electoral theft.”
Referring to Maharashtra, Gandhi said that although the Congress alliance won in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP managed a surprising victory in the state assembly elections just four months later. “We found that nearly 1 crore new voters had cast their votes in the assembly polls—people who didn’t vote in the Lok Sabha election. These new votes went overwhelmingly to the BJP,” he claimed, alleging foul play.
He further noted, “Our vote share didn’t decrease; we received the same number of votes as in the Lok Sabha polls. It’s these new voters that shifted the outcome in BJP’s favour.”
Rahul Gandhi emphasized that the data uncovered by his team was evidence of wrongdoing and said it took six months of sifting through massive amounts of paperwork to expose the alleged irregularities.
In Karnataka, he said internal party surveys had projected 15 to 16 seats for the Congress, yet the party only won nine. “Our polling showed we were leading in 16 seats. We started asking questions: Did we really lose? We requested the EC to share a soft copy of the voter list—they denied it. We asked for video footage, but they refused and even changed the law to mandate that such videos be destroyed after 45 days.”
Issuing a warning to the Election Commission, Gandhi said that if it continues to withhold crucial data, the Congress will launch a detailed investigation in constituencies with narrow victory margins—starting with 15 to 25 seats where the winning margin was just 35,000 votes or less.
“You cannot cover this up. You cannot hide. One day, you will have to answer. Every election officer and commissioner should take note,” he said, warning officials who he alleged were complicit in the election rigging.
Gandhi further accused the Modi government of attacking the Constitution and dismantling democratic institutions. “I say this with conviction and evidence: the Lok Sabha election was stolen.”
He warned those involved that while justice might take time, accountability was inevitable. “If you think you can trample the Constitution and walk away, you are mistaken. You will be held accountable—one by one.”
Holding a copy of the Constitution during his speech, Gandhi said it embodies India’s historic values and the voices of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Sardar Patel, along with thinkers such as Basavanna, Narayana Guru, and Jyotiba Phule. “Its core principle is one person, one vote. Every citizen has equal voting rights.”
He alleged that the BJP’s ideology runs counter to the Constitution and accused it of “buying” a government in Karnataka through horse-trading.
