Rahul seeks info from CEC in a week's time

NEW DELHI: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi 's fresh claim about fraudulent voter additions and deletions revolved around Aland in Karnataka where he said deletion of 6,018 votes was attempted ahead of 2023 assembly polls in 10 booths of which eight were "strong" for Congress. As Karnataka CID is probing the case, Rahul accused CEC Gyanesh Kumar of protecting those "who are murdering democracy" by not giving information - destination IP from where forms were filled, device destination ports from where these applications were filed and OTP trails - despite CID asking EC 18 times. He demanded that Kumar provide the details sought in a week's time.

Rahul also cited the example of Rajoura seat in Maharashtra where 6,850 "voter addition" were attempted fraudulently using the same modus operandi as Aland.

At a presser titled "Vote Chori Factory: The Aland Files", Rahul showed purported applications for fraudulent voter deletion, with examples of Godabai, Nagraj and Suryakant, who were said to have filed applications for deletion of some voters. They denied ever doing so. Drawing a pattern, he said voter deletion was carried with phones from outside the state, and in the name of the voter marked first in the list in a booth.

Amid heightened anticipation, Rahul said the vote deletion expose Thursday was not the "hydrogen bomb" of "vote chori" that he earlier said he would drop, but mentioned the "H-bomb" would come soon. He said by the time Congress ends presentations on 'vote chori" in two to three months, the country would be convinced that votes are being stolen in state after state.

Rahul said his job is to participate in democracy and not to protect it, but he is having to do so because other institutions are not discharging their duty. He urged "the legal system" to look into the details.

He said the Aland incident was exposed by accident after a BLO discovered her uncle's name had been deleted, and was done by the neighbour. The neighbour denied ever having done so. "EC is not giving details because it will lead us to where the operation is being done from. We know where it is being done from."

"This is solid proof that Gyanesh Kumar is protecting the people who are doing this. CEC is not telling CID who is doing this," Rahul added.