New Delhi [India], August 7 : The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, launched a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Election Commission on Thursday and said that "collusion" happened between the poll body and the BJP, which resulted in Prime Minister Narendra Modi securing his third term.
Rahul Gandhi said that the Election Commission is helping the BJP destroy the electoral system in 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)," Rahul Gandhi said.
The Congress leader further alleged that the poll body is "destroying evidence" through the directive on only preserving CCTV and webcasting footage of the election process for only 45 days after the whole process is completed, unless the election result is challenged in court.
"The Election Commission is looking to destroy the evidence across the country. It is the 21st century, you can keep as much data as you want in a hard drive, even 10 years old data, but the Election Commission wants to destroy the CCTV footage in 45 days, without giving the voter list. They are colluding with the BJP to destroy the election system in India," Gandhi alleged.
Earlier, the Election Commission of India on Saturday claimed that Gandhi is yet to respond to its June letter regarding his allegations of "election rigging" in the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
The EC said the Congress leader has not responded to an official invitation extended to him nearly two months ago.
"Why? Is it because his media statements were baseless?" ECI sources asked.
In a letter dated June 12, the Election Commission had invited the Leader of the Opposition for an interaction regarding "rigging" in Maharashtra Assembly elections, which he raised in a write-up that he wrote for a newspaper on June 7. He had claimed that the same would be repeated in the Bihar assembly polls due later this year.