New Delhi
Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, launched a sharp attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI) during the annual Legal Conclave titled Constitutional Challenges – Perspectives & Pathways on Saturday. Addressing over 1,500 delegates, including senior Congress leaders and legal professionals, Gandhi accused the poll body of enabling large-scale electoral fraud and claimed that the institution has disappeared and no longer functions independently.
In his speech, the Congress leader asserted that the party now has conclusive evidence of voter list manipulation and electoral malpractice. My allies would say to me, ‘Yes, we can see cheating has happened. But we don’t have proof.’ And now, I say with absolutely no doubt that we have proof, Gandhi said.
He further alleged that a six-month-long investigation into the physical, booth-wise voter lists provided by the ECI uncovered significant discrepancies. According to Gandhi, the voter list documents were intentionally made unscannable and uncopyable, making verification a tedious process. Why would the Election Commission protect the voter list like that? The paper versions they give cannot be scanned or copied. It took us six months of non-stop work to find this proof, he stated.
Gandhi claimed that his team manually compared over 6.5 lakh voter photographs and names, ultimately finding 1.5 lakh fake entries. He said this evidence demonstrates that the Election Commission, as we know it, does not exist anymore.