Election Commission on Wednesday countered the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s ‘vote chori’ claims by releasing a list of ‘important facts’ for the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections on social media.
This comes after Rahul Gandhi alleged that the 2024 Haryana Assembly polls were rigged in favour of the BJP. He claimed that 25 lakh votes were stolen in Haryana through the addition of 5.21 lakh duplicate voters, 93,174 invalid voters, and 19.26 lakh bulk voters.
However, without referring to Rahul Gandhi or his claims, the Haryana Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) issued a fact list for the polls and wrote: “Some Important Facts in respect of Haryana Assembly Elections 2024.”
According to the fact list, only 23 election petitions were filed to challenge the elections, while the number of objections raised by counting agents from all candidates totalled 10,180.
Gandhi cited the electoral list of Haryana to claim that 25,41,144 were fake voters with multiple examples of duplicate voters, invalid addresses and bulk voters. However, the Haryana CEO said that they had received only 4,16,408 objections during the Special Summary Revision (SSR).
An Election Commission source also told news agency PTI that Gandhi’s allegation of vote manipulation is unfounded, and no appeals were filed against the electoral rolls in Haryana.
“Why were no claims and objections raised by INC’s BLAs during revision to avoid multiple names?” the source said.
Booth-level agents, or BLAs, are appointed by political parties to oversee voting and flag irregularities, if any.
What did Rahul Gandhi claim?
Rahul Gandhi cited electoral list data from Haryana to claim that 25 lakh entries were “fake” and the assembly polls last year were “stolen”, as he accused the Election Commission of colluding with the BJP to make them win.
The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said he is questioning the Election Commission and the democratic process in the country and therefore, is doing so with 100 per cent proof.
Gandhi alleged that the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and the two election commissioners colluded with the BJP to ensure its victory in Haryana and claimed that “they are in partnership” with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
‘Operation Sarkar Chori’ was launched to convert the landslide Congress victory into a loss in Haryana, the former party president alleged.
He also alleged that CEC Gyanesh Kumar is “lying” to the people of India when he stated that house number zero is given to homeless people, and that is the reality of zero-number houses.
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