New Delhi, August 7: The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, in a press conference today here, provided evidence as to how the elections are being “rigged and stolen by the Bharatiya Janata Party in collusion with the Election Commission of India”.

Gandhi gave a comprehensive, elaborate and detailed powerpoint presentation listing multiple ways by which the BJP allegedly steals the elections. Gandhi cited the revelations made during a comprehensive case study of the Mahadevapura assembly segment falling in Bangalore Central parliamentary constituency, where the result of 2024 General Elections showed an entirely different pattern from the rest of the Assembly constituencies.

Gandhi said, of the eight assembly segments falling within the Bangalore Central parliamentary constituency, the voting pattern of the Mahadevapura assembly segment was suspicious where the BJP candidate took a lead of 1,14,046 votes. The BJP candidate won this parliamentary constituency by 32,707 covering the losses of the other segments in Mahadevpura.

Detailed analysis of the voter list of the assembly segment, Gandhi noted, revealed that there were 1,00,250 fake voters in this particular assembly segment, from where the BJP led by 1,14,046 votes.
Giving the breakdown of the fake voters, he said, while 11,965 were found to be duplicate voters, 40,009 voters had fake or invalid addresses. There were 10,452 bulk voters registered at single addresses, like one-room house showing 80 voters while actually nobody lived there. There were 4,132 voters with invalid photographs on the voter list.

Besides, he added, the form 6 meant for the new voters was the most misused one. He pointed out, normally the new voters’ age should vary between 18 to 25 years, but in this category, there were voters with age 98, 97, 85, 75 years and so on. “There is not a single person between the age of 18 to 25 among these first-time voters”, he pointed out while displaying a batch of the bulky voter list of “first-time voters”.

Gandhi said, while there was a logical and reasonable suspicion among the general public that elections were being stolen, till now, the party did not have conclusive evidence. He said it took six months for a team of about 40 people to verify each and every voter in one assembly segment of Mahadevapura. He said, this was just an example and the Congress party is convinced that the pattern is same in rest of the country.

The senior Congress leader disclosed that his party and the entire Opposition was suspicious about how the anti-incumbency does not affect the BJP when it affects every party in every democracy.
Besides, he added, the results were mostly going against the trends shown in the opinion and exit polls. He said, the success of the BJP was then attributed to reasons like Pulwama, Ladli Behna, while the fact was that the elections were stolen and choreographed.

Rahul Gandhi pointed out, in olden days, elections were held through ballot papers and the entire country voted on a single day. Now, he added, the elections are staggered for months. He stated that this raised strong suspicion about the motive behind the long election schedule.

Gandhi said that the earlier suspicions became concretised after the surprise results in Haryana and Maharashtra. He disclosed that one crore new voters were added in Maharashtra between Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. He pointed out, while the Congress and other opposition parties swept the Lok Sabha elections in the state, they were wiped out within a few months in the Vidhan Sabha polls

He noted that an unusual jump was shown in the voter turnout in Maharashtra Assembly elections after 5 pm on records, while actually there was no such rush seen in or outside the polling booths. He said, doubts became stronger after the Election Commission of India refused to share the CCTV footage and went a step further by changing the rule to limit the time of retention of the footage to just one and a half months. “Maharashtra election was stolen”, he asserted, while adding, “all these things made us believe with certainty that ECI was colluding with the BJP to steal the elections”.

The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha said, the Election Commission should not be in the business of destroying the democracy but protecting it. He said, this is a crime being committed against the Indian Constitution and the Indian flag. He said, while data analysis in Mahadevapura has provided the evidence of the crime in one assembly segment, he was absolutely convinced that this was being done across the country. “For us, the CCTV footage, and the voter list is now evidence of crime and the ECI is busy trying to destroy it”, he noted.
“I want the nation to know, there is a huge criminal fraud being perpetrated on this country by the ECI and the party in power”, he warned.