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‘Vote theft’: BJP's lone Kerala seat in focus, Congress flags discrepancies in Thrissur voter list
Echoing the Congress' claims, CPI(M) has also raised similar concerns for the Thrissur seat, which is the only seat BJP won during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Amid the vote theft row, Congress MP KC Venugopal on Tuesday raised concerns over the alleged discrepancies in the voters' list, especially in Kerala's Thrissur constituency.
“Many cases are coming out from Thrissur also... BJP has only one seat in Kerala, that too in Thrissur... After Rahul Gandhi's press conference, people are raising discrepancies all over India,” the Congress MP was quoted as saying by ANI.
"EC must address this concern. Instead of addressing it, they are only targeting Rahul Gandhi and the opposition parties," he added further.
BJP's Suresh Gopi won from the Thrissur seat with a margin of over 70,000 votes, defeating Congress's K Muraleedharan and CPI's V S Sunilkumar.
Congress leader VD Satheesan has also flagged the discrepancies in the voter list for the Thrissur constituency.
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"There were multiple voters with the same name, about 60 voters linked to a single-room house, and several irregularities like father's names being listed only as English initials, or house numbers marked as '0'," he said.
The Congress leader further flagged discrepancies in the newly enrolled voters' data, where some individuals listed as 18 years old were actually between 70 to 80 years old.
“Such large-scale electoral fraud has taken place across the country, including in the Maharashtra Assembly elections and the last Parliamentary elections. It is now being repeated in Bihar. PM Narendra Modi and his associates are in power by sabotaging free and fair elections, something seen only in authoritarian regimes, not in true democracies. They are not even fit to remain in power,” Satheesan was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Echoing the Congress' claims, the CPI(M) has also raised similar concerns for the Thrissur seat, which is the only seat BJP won during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Kerala woman claims fake voters registered to her house
A woman in Kerala has claimed that nine 'fake' voters were registered against her address in Thrissur. As per an India Today report, the woman has claimed that she was the only person in her household who votes in Thrissur city. Her family, which includes four adults and two children, are registered to Poochinipadam village.
Speaking to reporters, she learnt of the nine new names when she was approached for verification.
“We don’t know any of them [nine additional names]. We have been living here for four years. It’s not right to add names to our address without our consent," she told India Today, adding that she had filed a complaint with the district collector.
Opposition claims vote theft occurred during 2024 Lok Sabha elections
On August 7, Congress MP and Lok Sabha leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi claimed that a total of 1,00,250 "fake votes" were created in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka to ensure a win for the Bharatiya Janata Party.
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The Congress MP further alleged that a "collusion" had happened between the Election Commission of India and the BJP, which resulted in Narendra Modi's third term as Prime Minister of India.
"Narendra Modi became Prime Minister with just a margin of 25 seats... Election Commission is helping BJP destroy the electoral system in India... The Election Commission is not giving us the data because of what we did in Mahadevpur (Karnataka Assembly constituency); if we do it in other Lok Sabha seats, then the truth about our democracy will come out. This is the evidence, criminal evidence (pointing to the physical voter list)," said Gandhi.
The Leader of Opposition has further alleged that Election Commission is "destroying evidence.'
