Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday launched a scathing attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI), accusing it of acting like a “representative of the ruling party” and allegedly failing in its constitutional duty to conduct free and fair elections.
“There was a time when the Election Commission of India was praised across the world. Many countries took training from our Election Commission to conduct fair elections. When any political party raised questions, the Commission would respond or clarify within constitutional limits,” Kharge said in a post on X, originally written in Hindi.
“Today, when someone questions the ECI, instead of responding, it acts like a representative of the ruling party, leveling counter-allegations and making baseless statements without considering the demands of opposition parties,” he alleged.
Referring to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s remarks on alleged electoral irregularities, Kharge said, “Today, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, after thorough investigation, cited examples from Karnataka’s Mahadevapura Assembly Segment, explaining how the Election Commission allowed gross rigging in a single election, shredding its constitutional duties, with 1,00,250 votes stolen.”
Kharge claimed that such irregularities were not isolated incidents. “This #VoteChori is happening strategically across many seats in the country,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}Kharge claimed that such irregularities were not isolated incidents. “This #VoteChori is happening strategically across many seats in the country,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}Announcing the party’s next move, he said, “The Congress Party will raise public awareness about this. Tomorrow, we will begin from Freedom Park in Bengaluru, Karnataka.”
“The time has come to save democracy and the Constitution, to save the country!” the Congress chief added in the post.
Addressing reporters at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi, claimed that the Maharashtra election results confirmed the Congress party’s suspicion that the polls had been manipulated.
“Not giving machine-readable voter list convinced us that the Election Commission (EC) colluded with BJP to ‘steal’ elections in Maharashtra,” alleged the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
He further said, “They said we are going to destroy the CCTV footage. This was surprising to us because there was a question in Maharashtra about a massive voting after 5.30 pm for the numbers to add up. Our people knew that in the polling booths, no such thing happened. There was no massive voting after 5.30 pm.”
“These two things made us believe with reasonable certainty that the Election Commission of India was colluding with the BJP to steal elections,” Gandhi added.