The poll body said that the document shown by Mr Gandhi is not issued by a polling officer
- Rahul Gandhi claimed a 70-year-old woman registered as a voter twice using Form 6 for first-time voters
- However, the Election Commission today refuted his claim
- It said the document shown by Rahul Gandhi was not issued by a polling officer
The Election Commission today fact-checked yet another claim made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi recently over alleged election manipulation, which has become a flashpoint between him and the poll body
On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi shared a presentation with explosive claims alleging "vote theft". Among the many allegations, he shared the story of a 70-year-old woman who he claimed registered as a voter twice in two months, misusing Form 6, meant for first-time voters.
"Let me tell you the story of Shakun Rani. She became a first-time voter. She is 70 years old. She used Form 6 once and a few months later, she used Form 6 again. She had been listed in the voter list twice. And she is listed as a first-time voter. So did Shakun Rani vote or did someone else vote for Shakun Rani? To hide this, CCTV data is not being given to us. And, Shakun Rani's case is not the only case like this. There are thousands of people who have used Form 6 to put their names 2-3 times in the voter list," he alleged.
However, the poll panel today trashed the claim and said, "In the Election Commission inquiry, it was found that Shakun Rani only voted once, not twice as claimed by Rahul Gandhi".
During the presentation, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said that two votes were cast using Ms Rani's ID card, showing a document with tick marks, allegedly by a polling booth officer.
However, in its 5-point reply, the Election Commission (EC) said that the document shown by him" is not a document issued by the polling officer".
"You have also stated that as per the records given by the polling officer, Smt. Shakun Rani has voted twice. You have said: "Is ID card per do baar vote lagi hai, wo jo tick hai, polling booth ke officer ki hai (two votes were cast with this ID card. The tick that you see on the paper is by the polling booth officer)... Preliminary enquiry conducted by this office reveals that the tick-marked document shown by you in the presentation is not a document issued by the polling officer," it said.
The EC has now sent a notice to Mr Gandhi and requested him to provide the relevant documents on the basis of which he made the claim that Ms Rani "or anyone else, has voted twice, so that a detailed inquiry can he undertaken by this office".
Rahul Gandhi had claimed that his party had asked for a digital voter list and CCTV footage of the voting booth from the EC, but they allegedly didn't provide the information.
"Then we did our own investigation, filed RTIs and we got the data. The truth is that the Election Commission and the BJP are stealing the election," he alleged.
After his presentation during an INDIA bloc meeting, the poll body - in a rare response - had asked Rahul Gandhi to either submit his allegations under oath or apologise to the nation. It dismissed his claims as a "distorted and baseless analysis" and said that if Mr Gandhi does not sign the declaration, "it would mean that he does not believe in his analysis and is making absurd allegations".
The INDIA bloc meeting was over the controversial electoral rolls' revision in Bihar as well as what they described as the "vote chori (theft) model of the BJP-Election Commission".
At a press conference earlier, Mr Gandhi had made a presentation with explosive claims of a "huge criminal fraud" in polls through "collusion" between the BJP and the Election Commission.
The BJP, meanwhile, has stepped in to defend the EC and criticise Mr Gandhi for "maligning a constitutional body".
"If Rahul Gandhi values his credibility, he must, under Declaration/Oath, submit the names of the ineligible electors he claims are on the voter list, as mandated by Rule 20(3)(b) of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960," said BJP's Amit Malviya in a post on X.
"Failure to do so will make it abundantly clear that he has no real case and was merely engaging in political theatre," he added.
On Monday, the opposition bloc, led by Mr Gandhi, will march from Parliament House Complex to the office of the Election Commission of India in Delhi, sources said.
The same day, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge will host a dinner for MPs of the INDIA bloc, sources said, as the opposition alliance intensifies its efforts to present a united front against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar and alleged large-scale rigging in polls.
