‘70-100 seats rigged’: Rahul Gandhi alleges massive 2024 poll fraud; EC denies claims
New Delhi: Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has alleged that the 2024 general elections were rigged to favor the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claiming that as many as 70 to 100 parliamentary seats were manipulated. The BJP had secured 240 seats while the Congress won 99.
Speaking at the All India Congress Committee’s Annual Legal Conclave at Vigyan Bhawan on August 2, Gandhi asserted that the Congress has gathered "100% proof" of large-scale election malpractice and would soon release its findings, which he described as “like an atom bomb.”
Gandhi declared, “The Prime Minister of India has a very slim majority. If 10-15 seats were rigged, it would have been possible. But our suspicion is closer to 70, 80, or even 100 seats.”
Citing Maharashtra as the turning point, Gandhi said, “In the Lok Sabha elections, we won. But just four months later, in the Assembly polls, we were wiped out. We discovered that one crore new voters were added between the two elections, most of whom voted for the BJP.”
He referred to one particular constituency where, according to the Congress’s internal probe, 6.5 lakh people voted, out of which 1.5 lakh were allegedly fake. “We compared each photo on the booth-wise voter list. The list was made scan-proof by the Election Commission. Why would they do that?” Gandhi asked.
He further alleged that the Election Commission (EC) had ceased to function independently: “The institution that defends the Constitution has been obliterated. The EC does not exist anymore. It has disappeared.”
In response, the Election Commission of India issued a public “fact check” on social media, calling Gandhi’s claims “baseless, misleading and threatening.”
The EC clarified that both the draft and final electoral rolls for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections had been shared with all political parties, including the Congress, and were open to appeal under Section 24 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. “Hardly any appeals were filed across all 36 States and Union Territories by INC,” it said.
It also noted that only eight petitions had been filed by losing Congress candidates under Section 80 of the RP Act, 1951, and that Gandhi had failed to respond to its earlier invitation to discuss his concerns following a newspaper article on alleged voter list tampering in Maharashtra.
Calling the Congress leader’s claims a deliberate attempt to discredit the work of lakhs of election officials, the EC said:
“These unfounded allegations appear to be an attempt to exert undue pressure on the election machinery and threaten it without taking recourse to proper legal channels.”
Congress to release report soon
Despite the EC’s rebuttal, Gandhi doubled down on his accusations, claiming that those who had seen the Congress’s investigative findings had been “shocked.” He said the party would soon release documentary evidence exposing the alleged voter fraud.
With Parliament expected to take up the matter, tensions are set to rise as the Congress prepares to formally unveil its investigation, which it claims took over six months to compile due to the lack of digital access to voter rolls.
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Niqab incident: Nitish Kumar perhaps revealing his true colours, says J-K CM
Srinagar (PTI): Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday criticised his Bihar counterpart over the niqab incident and said that Nitish Kumar might be slowly revealing his true nature.
"Nitish Kumar, who was once considered a secular leader, may be slowly showing his true colours," Abdullah told reporters here on the sidelines of a function.
Abdullah said Kumar removing the face veil of a Muslim woman doctor was wrong and cannot be justified by any means.
"We have seen this kind of incident here several years ago. Have you forgotten how Mehbooba Mufti removed the burqa of a legitimate voter inside a polling station? That act was wrong, and this act (of Kumar) is also wrong.
"If the (Bihar) chief minister did not want to hand over the order to her (Muslim woman), they could have kept her aside. However, to humiliate her like this is totally wrong," the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said.
Kumar stirred a huge controversy after he removed the face veil of a Muslim woman at a function earlier this week.
