Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], September 18 : Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on Thursday strongly backed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's allegations of vote theft, asserting that the concerns raised were 200 per cent valid and had been conveyed to the Election Commission earlier as well.
Speaking to reporters here, DK Shivakumar said, "This issue was raised before the Election Commission earlier also. We have made a number of requests to give us the data. Whatever Rahul Gandhi said is 200 per cent right. This is going on in the entire country. We want the Election Commission to work independently. They are looking at a political angle. Even in Karnataka, they are asking us for the information."
Earlier today, former Uttarakhand Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Harish Rawat backed Rahul Gandhi's allegations of vote theft, stating that Gandhi has revealed a "harsh truth."
Speaking to ANI, the senior Congress leader accused the Election Commission of acting like a "political party" and accused them of avoiding answers to the questions posed to them.
This comes amid Rahul Gandhi's fresh allegations of an attempt at vote theft in Karnataka's Aland constituency. Addressing a press conference today, he claimed that there was an attempt to delete more than 6,000 voters' names from the Aland constituency in Karnataka.
"In Aland, Karnataka, 6018 votes, somebody tried to delete these votes. We don't know the total number of votes deleted in the 2023 elections, but somebody got caught. It was caught, by most crimes, by coincidence. What happened was that the Booth Level officer noticed that her uncle's vote had been deleted," he said.
The Lok Sabha LoP further alleged that the Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, is "protecting vote chors" and is fully aware of how fraud is happening in deleting and adding fake voters in the voter list. He stated that he has "10 per cent proof" that the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar is "protecting vote chors (vote thieves)."
He said that a group of people is using a centralised method through software, impersonating real voters, and deleting their names from the voter lists.
Gandhi further claimed that he is "getting help" from people who are working for the Election Commission of India (ECI) in uncovering alleged vote fraud in the country.
"We have started getting help from inside the Election Commission. I am making it clear that we are now getting information from inside the Election Commission; this was not happening before, but now we are getting information from inside the Election Commission, and this is not going to stop. India's people will not accept this. Once the youth come to know that vote chori is happening, then their power will come," Rahul Gandhi alleged.
Responding to the claims, the ECI has called Rahul Gandhi's allegations "baseless and incorrect", highlighting that no deletion of any vote can be done online by any member of the public.
The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Karnataka also responded to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi's fresh claims of "vote chori" in Aland constituency, stating that the poll body had already rejected all incorrect applications and an FIR was filed in the matter in 2023.
The Karnataka CEO said in a statement that the ERO in Aland received 6,018 online applications through Form 7 in December 2022. "Suspecting the genuineness of such a large number of applications submitted online for deletion of electors' names in 46-Aland LAC in Karnataka, verification of each application was conducted by ERO/AERO/BLOS," an official statement said.
Only 24 applications were found to be genuine, and another 5,994 were found to be incorrect. Accordingly, 24 applications were accepted, and 5,994 incorrect applications were rejected and not deleted, the statement added.
The leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha has claimed that the investigation into the alleged fraud has been stalled for over 2 years as the poll body is not replying to the letters sent by the CID, calling it "proof" that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar is "protecting vote chors (vote thieves).