Congress steps up pressure on Election Commission of India after Rahul’s presentation on Aland constituency

Stepping up their attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI) and Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar after Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi alleged “inaction” in an attempted voter deletion, Congress leaders on Thursday asked how long will the CEC avoid answering their questions.

“Armed with concrete proof, Shri @RahulGandhi has thoroughly exposed the mass vote deletion in Aland Assembly in Karnataka. This leads to 3 important questions: Who is the ECI shielding? Is BJP hollowing out the very Institutions meant to protect our Democracy? Can we afford a Democracy where the Electoral System is being dismantled by a #VoteChoriFactory? People of India, especially the young should strongly ask these questions,” Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge asked on X.

Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal, in a X post, asked how long will the CEC run away from these questions. “Those who were asking for affidavits are now ignoring 18 letters written by the Karnataka CID. The evidence of vote chori now makes it an open-and-shut case, how long will the CEC remain silent to protect his masters? With every subsequent exposé, the country is seeing the Vote Chori even more clearly. The EC must respond immediately, the country is waiting for answers,” Mr. Venugopal said.

His colleague and Congress communication chief Jairam Ramesh shared the letters written by the Karnataka chief electoral officer (CEO) and criminal investigation department (CID) of the Karnataka government, seeking information, such as the destination IP from where applications for deletions were filled and OTP trails.

All India Professional Congress (AIPC) chief Praveen Chakravarty also acknowledged The Hindu news break on the attempted deletion of voters in the Aland constituency. “The Hindu’s Aland story and the excellent ground reporting of journalist Aditya Bharadwaj were significant catalysts for our research and investigation that went into today’s press conference by Mr. Rahul Gandhi,” Mr. Chakravarty said.