NEW DELHI —Congress leader and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, who is on a US visit, has raised serious concerns over the integrity of India’s electoral process, alleging voter fraud and accusing the Election Commission of India (ECI) of being compromised.
Addressing members of the Indian diaspora in Boston during his visit to the United States, Gandhi cited discrepancies in the voter turnout figures during the Maharashtra Assembly elections as a key example.
“More people voted in the Maharashtra Assembly elections than there are registered voters,” Gandhi claimed.
“The Election Commission gave us a figure at 5.30 in the evening. Then, between 5.30 and 7.30 p.m., 65 lakh additional votes were cast. That is physically impossible to manage in just two hours.”
He went on to question the feasibility of such a large number of votes being polled in such a short timeframe.
“This would mean there were queues of voters stretching into the early hours of the morning. We raised this with the Election Commission, asked for video evidence, but they refused to provide it. It was very clear to us that the Commission was compromised.”
“There is something very wrong with the system. I’ve said this multiple times,” he reiterated, adding that the erosion of institutional independence is a growing concern.
Rahul Gandhi is also scheduled to address a gathering at Brown University during his visit to the United States.
In the Maharashtra elections held last year, Congress could manage to win just 16 seats with 12.42 per cent vote share. The party’s alliance partners also did worse with Shiv Sena (UBT winning 20 seats with nearly 10 per cent vote share while NCP (SP) could win only 10 seats with just 11.28 per cent vote share.
On the other hand, the MahaYuti emerged victorious with all three partners – BJP, NCP, and Shiv Sena getting 230 seats combined and forming the government with an absolute majority. — IANS
