- AAP supports INDIA bloc's vote theft claims against BJP and criticises Election Commission
- AAP's Anurag Dhanda alleges BJP stole votes in Delhi, causing low rally turnouts
- Opposition campaigns against alleged vote theft in elections
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has backed the INDIA bloc's allegation of vote theft against the BJP, slamming the Election Commission (EC) for failing to uphold free and fair polls in the country. The BJP won elections by stealing votes in Delhi; that's why people are not turning up for its rallies even in the capital city, AAP leader Anurag Dhanda has alleged.
Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had recently alleged irregularities in Karnataka's voter rolls during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. He had also snubbed the EC's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar - an exercise that the poll body had justified as necessary to clean the lists of dead and duplicate voters.
"The Election Commission wants to put the blame on political parties for what is their responsibility. The EC has been trying to justify the SIR, saying it wants to clean the voter list. But after the parties pointed out the faults in previous voter lists, the EC is now saying it was the parties' responsibility to fix the voter lists," Mr Dhanda, a leader from Haryana and AAP's national media in-charge, told news agency ANI.
Mr Dhanda alleged the vote theft has now been caught and that it has left the EC "embarrassed". "Now, its collusion with the BJP has become public, which is why the Election Commission has started blaming political parties," he added.
Responding to the criticism, the EC had earlier said that the parties are involved at all stages of preparation of the electoral rolls and that they did not raise objections in time.
Mr Dhanda also shared what he claimed was a glaring example of the BJP-EC collusion.
"The BJP won the Delhi elections by stealing votes. The AAP raised several allegations before the EC, but it didn't hear us and helped the BJP. The result is that people are not turning up for even the Prime Minister's rallies in Delhi. MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) staff and teachers are being ordered to attend BJP rallies even on holidays. It is the EC's responsibility to keep a check on this," he said.
"We repeatedly complained that fake voters are being added, and authentic ones are being erased. This exposes the collusion of the BJP and the EC," said the AAP leader.
When asked about the BJP's denial of the Opposition's allegations, he sought to know why they are worried if the charges lacked substance. "Why is the BJP worried if the issue was not real? The EC alone could have responded to the charges," he said. But the poll body is not able to answer the Opposition's queries on how it failed to keep the voter list sanitised, asserted Mr Dhanda.
Meanwhile, Mr Gandhi launched a fresh attack on the EC this afternoon, stepping up the Opposition's campaign against what he claims is "vote chori (theft)". He alleged a "new conspiracy" to steal votes by deleting and adding voters in election-bound Bihar through the SIR exercise. "We will not let them steal elections in Bihar," he declared while launching his 1,300-km 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' from Bihar's Sasaram.
