Rahul accuses EC of colluding with BJP, seeks 10 years’ CCTV footage, digital voter lists

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday intensified his attack on the Election Commission (EC), demanding that it release digital, machine-readable voters’ lists and CCTV footage from polling booths for the past 10 years, in support of his allegation of large-scale “vote theft”.

Addressing the “Vote Adhikar Rally” at Freedom Park here, Gandhi accused the EC and the BJP of working in tandem to “steal” the Lok Sabha elections, claiming that data unearthed by the Congress in Karnataka was “proof of a crime”.

On Thursday, the Congress leader had alleged that the Mahadevapura Assembly segment, under the Bengaluru Central parliamentary seat, had more than one lakh bogus voters during last year’s parliamentary polls. He urged the Congress government in Karnataka to probe the alleged “vote fraud” and take action against the officials involved.

Posing five questions to the EC, Gandhi asked: “Why are you not giving voter lists in a digital, machine-readable format? Why are you destroying video evidence? Why is the EC committing massive fraud in the voter lists? Why is the EC threatening the Opposition instead of answering our questions? Why is the EC behaving like an agent of the BJP?”

Gandhi said internal assessments before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections had shown the Congress leading in 16 of Karnataka’s seats. “We were ahead in 16 seats, but we won only nine. Following the defeat, we began to question whether we had actually lost those seats. When we sought the voters’ list and CCTV footage, the EC ignored us. Then they changed the law to stop sharing such videos,” he alleged.

Accusing the poll panel of aiding the BJP to keep Prime Minister Narendra Modi in power, Gandhi said: “The EC is helping the BJP destroy the electoral system.”