Rahul Gandhi took aim at the BJP Tuesday afternoon, reminding the ruling party of a controversial episode from last month – a Brazilian woman's photograph appeared against 22 names in Haryana's voter list – and accusing it of colluding with the Election Commission to commit 'vote chori' in recent state and federal poll, including in Bihar on November 14.
"There is no bigger anti-national act than 'vote chori'," Rahul Gandhi thundered in a debate on electoral reforms, hitting back at the BJP and other critics who routinely lobby the phrase 'anti-national' – most recently in the 'Vande Mataram' row Monday – at the Congress and him.
"A Brazilian woman appeared 22 times in Haryana voter lists… another woman's name appeared 200 times. The Haryana election was stolen. I have said this again and again and again… but nowhere has the Election Commission answered my questions."
"The EC hasn't told me why lakhs of duplicate voters exist. The EC has no answers to these questions. Why, after the SIR in Bihar, were there 1.2 lakh duplicate voters? It is very clear you have captured the institution. I have shown how the EC is doing things completely out of line."
"Why was the Chief Justice of India removed the panel that selects the Election Commissioners? Do we not believe in the Chief Justice? Why was he not in that room? I sit in the room… but I have no voice" he continued, referring to another controversy – this time over the government removing the Chief Justice, the sole non-political member of that panel.
The other members of the panel are the Prime Minister and a union minister nominated by the PM, meaning the ruling party, or alliance, controls nominations to the poll panel.
"Why do the PM and Amit Shah decide who will be in the Election Commission? This government also changed the law to ensure no election commissioner gets punished for any action they take while in office. Why would they give such powers…"
"Amit Shah is looking at the ceiling," Gandhi then quipped mid-speech, "Perhaps he will answer this question when he speaks."
So far Gandhi has made three PowerPoint presentations – two in August, in which he presented data indicating voter fraud in the Karnataka Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections, and a third in September, in which he claimed centralised, mass-deletion of voter names.
This, he has argued, is only possible with active assistance from the EC.
In each of the PPTs he accused the EC and BJP of working together to manipulate voter rolls to ensure an unprecedented string of electoral victories for the BJP since it came to power in 2014.
The top poll panel and the ruling party responded each time to rubbish the allegations and demand categorical proof – which Gandhi said he provided in his presentations – of the charges.
"Electoral reform… this is very simple but the point is nobody wants to do it. The government doesn't want to do it," Gandhi continued, referring also to the controversy over Electronic Voting Machines used in polls, which the opposition insists has been tampered with to favour the BJP.
He also took aim at the BJP over a law that gives the Chief Election Commissioner and his deputies legal immunity for decisions taken while in office – and warned the Election Commission, "Don't worry, we will change it back and we will come and find you."
Gandhi, also the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, ripped into the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP's ideological mentor, and accused it of the 'wholesale capture' of India's institutional framework" – i.e., education, law enforcement, and electoral mechanisms.
"Everything emerges from the vote.. all institutions emerge from the vote. So it is obvious the RSS has to capture everything that emerges from the vote," he said, "Everyone knows how Vice-Chancellors are placed on top of universities today… it does not matter their professional qualifications. The only thing that matters is their belonging to a particular organisation."
The "capture" of the CBI and ED (i.e., the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate, both of which report to the union government) and the systematic placement of bureaucrats who align with its ideology is the second step in this process, he said.
"The third is the institution that controls elections in the country – the Election Commission. I am not saying this without proof. I have put forward adequate proof…" he said.
