Poll Body Asks Rahul Gandhi to Provide Evidence on Karnataka Voter Fraud Claims

The Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has asked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to provide documents supporting his claim that a voter cast her ballot twice in last year’s Lok Sabha elections.

The CEO’s letter refers to Gandhi’s recent press conference, where he said certain documents he showed were “EC data” and claimed that a voter named Shakun Rani had voted twice, based on marks “given by the polling officer.” Gandhi had said, “This ID has been used to vote twice, the tick marks were made by the polling booth officer.” However, the election officials found that Shakun Rani said she voted only once during an inquiry, and a preliminary investigation showed the tick-marked document Gandhi presented was not issued by any polling officer.

The CEO asked Gandhi to submit the documents on which he based his allegations so a detailed inquiry can be conducted.

**Rahul Gandhi vs. Election Commission**

In a sharp attack on the Election Commission (EC), Rahul Gandhi recently accused the poll body of colluding with the BJP to “steal elections” across the country. Speaking to the press, he alleged fake names were being added to voter lists, presenting electoral rolls from Bangalore’s Mahadevapura assembly segment as evidence.

Gandhi claimed there was massive vote theft in the area. Out of 6.5 lakh votes, he said over one lakh were fraudulent, citing Congress’s research that found nearly 12,000 duplicate voters, 40,000 with fake or invalid addresses, over 10,000 voters sharing the same address, and more than 4,000 with invalid photos. He also claimed almost 34,000 voters had misused the form for new registrations.

In the 2024 polls, Bangalore Central saw a tight race, with Congress candidate Mansoor Ali Khan initially leading before BJP’s PC Mohan won by 32,707 votes. Gandhi said Congress won six of the seven segments but lost Mahadevapura by 1,14,000 votes, which he blamed on vote theft.

Gandhi also criticised the EC for not providing voter lists in an electronic, machine-readable format. He said this made it difficult to verify the data, causing Congress’s investigation to drag on for six months. He accused the EC of only providing paper copies to make scrutiny harder.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission dismissed Gandhi’s claims, asking him to either submit signed evidence or stop making baseless accusations against the institution. The Karnataka election authorities also asked Gandhi to provide a signed affidavit with details of his allegations and questioned why no formal complaint had been filed.

As the controversy grows, the BJP challenged Rahul Gandhi on Sunday to submit the names of the supposedly ineligible voters, saying, “If the Congress MP truly values his own credibility, he should come forward with evidence.”