ECI calls Rahul Gandhi's charge against poll body chief Gyanesh Kumar 'baseless'

After Rahul held a morning press conference, the ECI countered the allegations and said on X, "Allegations made by Shri Rahul Gandhi are incorrect and baseless."

Rahul on Thursday ramped up his attack on the ECI alleging votes were deleted from the Congress strongholds in the 2023 Karnataka elections.

With a powerpoint illustration, the Congress top leader picked the Aland constituency of Karnataka to level the charges against the ECI, which is at loggerheads with the opposition INDIA bloc.

"Aland is a constituency in Karnataka; 6,018 votes. Somebody tried to delete 6,018 votes. We don't know the total number of votes that were deleted in Aland in the 2023 election. They're likely much higher than 6,018. But somebody got caught deleting 6,018 votes, and it was caught, like most crimes, by coincidence. What happened was the booth-level officer noticed that her uncle's vote was deleted. So, she checked who deleted her uncle's vote and found it was a neighbor.

"However, neither the person deleting the vote nor the person whose vote was deleted knew; some other force hijacked the process and deleted the vote, and, as luck would have it, got caught. What does the operation look like? In Aland, 6,018 applications were filed, impersonating voters. The people who allegedly filed these applications never actually filed them. We'll show you evidence of that," said Rahul.

"The filing was done automatically using software, which we'll also demonstrate. Mobile numbers from outside Karnataka, from different states were used to delete votes in Aland, specifically targeting Congress voters. This wasn't random. We'll show you that these deletions specifically targeted booths where the Congress party was winning," the Rae Bareli MP added.

Aland, which is one of the 224 assembly constituencies in Karnataka, was however won by the Congress which is currently ruling the southern state.

Hitting back at the Congress MP, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Ravi Shankar Prasad said, "Does Rahul Gandhi understand the Constitution? He went to the Supreme Court. Did the court issue any direction? Neither he understands law nor the Supreme Court order."

"The way he is behaving, the country will never vote for him. Be it justifiably or due to his lineage, Rahul Gandhi happens to be the LoP so he must behave accordingly and have some values," Prasad added.

Earlier, Rahul had alleged 'vote chori' training his guns at the poll body.

Calling Rahul's "vote chori" remark as an "insult to the Constitution", the poll body had said the use of phrases like "vote chori" undermined democratic institutions.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar also accused political parties of using the poll body as a political prop.

He also dismissed claims of double voting, saying while concerns had been raised by some, no evidence was submitted.