Rahul Gandhi slams EC for asking affidavit under oath, says he has taken oath in Parliament

BENGALURU: Slamming the Election Commission for demanding an affidavit under oath from him, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday asserted that he has taken the oath inside the Parliament holding the Constitution and reiterated his allegation of vote theft.

Addressing the ‘Vote Adhikar Rally’ here, Gandhi alleged that the Election Commission and BJP colluded to steal the Lok Sabha election from people.

"The EC asks me to file an affidavit and give information under oath. I have taken oath inside the Parliament holding the Constitution," he said. Today when the people are questioning the Election Commission based on data he released, the EC has shut its website, he alleged.

The EC websites in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar have been shut down because they knew that if people started questioning based on data, then their entire structure would collapse, Gandhi alleged.

He posed 5 questions to the Election Commission and said that instead of "threatening" him, the poll panel must answer such questions. "Why are you not giving voter lists in digital machine readable format to the people of India? The next question was, "Why are you destroying video evidence?

Another question was, "Why is EC committing massive fraud in the voter lists? The other 2 questions were, "Why is EC threatening opposition instead of answering our questions and Why is EC behaving like an agent of the BJP ?

The top leader wanted his party-run government in Karnataka to investigate and act against the "crime of stealing election".

The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha claimed Narendra Modi is "a Prime Minister with a margin of 25 Lok Sabha seats," and that "if we get the electronic voter data from across the country then we will prove that the Indian Prime Minister is holding the post by theft."

Further, the former Congress president said: "In the (2024) Lok Sabha election, our alliance wins in Maharashtra. But after 4 months, the BJP won the Maharashtra Assembly election. It was a surprising election result. When we tried to find out, we learnt that 1 crore new voters cast their votes; 1 crore new voters who had never voted in the LS polls voted in the assembly election in Maharashtra."

The Congress leader claimed that such new votes went to the BJP, which pointed to "wrongdoings." Wherever such new voters cast their votes, the BJP won.

"The votes of our alliance did not reduce and we got exactly the same number of votes we had in the Lok Sabha election. The new voters went to the BJP in the Assembly election," he added.

The Congress leader said the data he and his party leaders extracted was evidence of a crime and it took six months to "dig out facts" when they had to rummage through a huge pile of papers.

Rahul claimed that in Karnataka, Congress surveys showed them winning 15 to 16 seats in the Lok Sabha election. "Our polling showed that we were ahead in 16 seats but we won nine seats. Then we started questioning. Did we really lose elections? We were demanding the EC a soft copy voter list but they were rejecting it. When we demanded video (recordings), they rejected it and changed the law. They said that they should destroy the video after 45 days," Gandhi said.

The top leader warned the EC that if it did not provide data, his party would carry out an exercise similar to what it had conducted in Mahadevapura Assembly constituency in Karnataka; by diving deep into 15 to 25 seats where the victory margin in the LS polls was just 35,000 or so.

"Neither can you cover up nor can you hide. You will have to face the opposition one day. Every officer and the election commissioner should understand this properly,” he said warning officials who allegedly colluded with the BJP.

"In the last election, Modi and BJP leaders made an assault on the Constitution. Indian institutions were destroyed," he alleged.

He claimed: "I am telling you with conviction and proof that the Lok Sabha election was also stolen."

If such officials thought that they could attack the Constitution and still escape, they must rethink. Taking action against them may take time, but they would be caught one by one.

"Mark my words, because if you attack the Constitution, then we will attack you."

Holding a copy of the Constitution, he said it has the ideology of thousands of years of history. "It has Mahatma Gandhi, Ambedkar, Nehru and Sardar Patel's voice resonates along with the sayings of Basavanna, Narayana Guru and Jyotiba Phule. Its foundation is one man one vote." Every Indian citizen has the right of one vote each.

Rahul alleged the BJP's ideology was against the spirit of the Constitution and that it had "stolen a government" in Karnataka by paying money, a reference to allegations of horse-trading against the Saffron party.