Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 13 : Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray on Wednesday accused the Election Commission of being "scared" over alleged voter fraud, citing examples of multiple voter cards and inflated details, including a Bihar woman recorded as 124 years old.
Thackeray, while speaking to reporters, said, "The Election Commission is scared. We will only say, don't be afraid, come forward and admit that you were doing manipulation until now, and you won't do it anymore."
Thackeray said these cases show that "vote theft" has been happening and accused the Election Commission of evading accountability after being exposed.
He said, "In Varanasi, there is a person who has had 34 children in 16 years; you do the math. In Palghar, there is a woman who has 5 voter cards, Minta Devi, who is 124 years old. We have been talking about this vote theft, and now, after being caught, the Election Commission is running away."
Meanwhile, Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday shared a video of having tea with some "dead" voters from Bihar and thanked the Election Commission for this "unique" experience.
A group of voters met the Congress MP and shared how they were declared "dead" by the Election Commission and how their names were removed from the voter list after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
Sharing the 3-4 minutes long video, Gandhi captioned, "There have been many interesting experiences in life, but I never got the chance to have tea with 'dead people.' For this unique experience, thank you Election Commission!"
In the video clip posted, the Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition LoP was seen meeting a group of several people who claimed that they have officially been marked "dead" in voter lists despite being alive. "I have heard that you guys are not alive. The Election Commission has killed you," the LoP stated.
He further asked them how they got to know about it, to which one of them replied that they discovered it through the Election Commission's voters list.
After this, Gandhi asked the number of such people, to which another man replied, "There are at least 50 such cases in a single panchayat."
They alleged that in the constituency of RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, Raghupur, many living voters were shown as "dead" in the list provided by the Election Commission.
One of the group members urged the Congress MP and Mahagathbandhan alliance to "save Bihar", to which the LoP affirmed that they are trying to stop the electoral malpractices.
This development came amid a row that erupted over Rahul Gandhi's "vote theft" allegations against the Election Commission and alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in poll-bound Bihar.
On August 7, the Congress MP at a press conference claimed that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were "choreographed" by the EC to benefit the BJP, which he said appeared "immune to anti-incumbency."