Rahul Gandhi accuses CEC Gyanesh Kumar of protecting ‘voting choirs’; The EC considers its assertions unfounded

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday (September 18) accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of protecting “election choirs” and people who destroyed democracy. The Congress MP cited data from Aland – an Assembly constituency in Karnataka – to claim that votes of Congress supporters were being systematically suppressed before elections.

Addressing a press conference, Gandhi said the Election Commission must put an end to this and provide within a week the information sought by the Karnataka CID as part of a probe into voter suppression.

He mentioned upfront that this was not the “hydrogen bomb” of revelations he had promised and that they would come soon.

He cited details of alleged attempts to suppress votes in Aland constituency in 2023. “I am going to make a serious statement about Gyanesh Kumar. I do not say this lightly. The CEC protects the constituencies and people who have destroyed Indian democracy,” the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha asserted.

Someone systematically targeted millions of voters for suppression across India, he claimed. “I am the leader of the opposition and I will not say anything which is not supported by 100% evidence,” Gandhi said.

Gandhi said someone tried to delete 6,018 votes in Aland and was caught by chance and alleged that the names of Congress voters were being systematically deleted.

“The officer at the booth noticed that her uncle’s vote had been deleted and found out that her neighbor had deleted her uncle’s vote. She asked her neighbor who told her he had no idea. It was found that another force had hijacked the process and deleted the vote — and as luck would have it, she was intercepted,” Gandhi said.

He claimed that 6,018 applications were filed posing as voters and this filing was done automatically using mobile numbers outside Karnataka.

In August, Gandhi cited data from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and claimed that over one lakh votes were “stolen” through manipulation during the Mahadevapura assembly segment in Karnataka.

EC response

The EC termed Gandhi’s allegations as incorrect and baseless. “The allegations made by Rahul Gandhi are incorrect and baseless. No vote suppression can be done online by any member of the public, as Gandhi misunderstood,” he said.

No deletion can take place without giving the person concerned an opportunity to be heard, the EC affirmed.