Rahul Gandhi slams ECI for not cooperating with Karnataka CID's vote fraud investigation, accuses Gyanesh Kumar of "protecting vote chors"

New Delhi [India], September 18 (ANI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday slammed the Election Commission of India for allegedly not cooperating with the voter fraud investigation opened up by the Karnataka Crime Investigation Department (Karnataka CID) in the Aland assembly segment in the Kalaburagi district.

The leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha has claimed that the investigation into the alleged fraud has been stalled for over 2 years as the poll body is not replying to the letters sent by the CID, calling it proof that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar is protecting vote chors (vote thieves).

February 2023 investigation is started, March 2023 Karnataka CID writes to ECI asking for all details. Incomplete details are given in August, with which no investigation can happen. Whatever was not needed was given, whatever was needed that was not given (by the Election Commission), Rahul Gandhi said during a press conference at the Congress headquarters, Indira Bhawan.

He further demanded the ECI to release the requested data within 1 week, as the Karnataka EC has also asked for the data but no reply was given.

Second thing, 18 letters have been given. If you get one letter from CID and you dont reply, you know what will happen. Here ECI is getting 18 letters, nothing has happened. Later on Karnataka EC asks the ECI to give the information to them. You have to give information, but no reply, the LoP in Lok Sabha alleged.

Alleging that the ECI is aware of people who are fraudulently changing the voter lists, he added, Last letter was sent on September (2025), few days ago. No reply. This is the proof that Gyanesh Kumar is protecting vote chors. But who are these people? Who are using software, in a centralised manner deleting votes of people. Election Commission, Gyanesh Kumar knows who they are.

Rahul Gandhi has said during the press conference that there is a group of people who are systematically targeting certain voters who vote for the Opposition parties, and who primarily belong to the OBC, Dalit, and marginalised communities.

In election after election, someone, some group of people have been systematically targeting voters for deletions across India. Different communities, mainly who are voting for opposition, Dalits, OBCs, adivasis, minorities are specifically targeted who vote for the Opposition. We had heard this many times, and now we found 100 per cent proof of it. I am not going to say anything on this stage that is not backed up by 100 per cent proof, he said.

Talking about the Aland constituency in Karnataka he alleged that there was an attempt to fraudulently delete around 6 thousand votes by unknown people using software.

In Aland, Karnataka, 6018 votes, somebody tried to delete these votes. We dont know the total number of votes deleted in 2023 elections, but somebody got caught. It was caught, by most crimes, by a coincidence. What happened was that the Booth Level officer noticed that her uncle vote has been deleted. When she checked she saw that her neighbour had deleted the vote, he added.

When she asked the neighbour, he said that he is not aware of doing such a thing. So neither the neighbour nor the person whose vote was deleted knew. Some other force hijacked the process and deleted the vote. As luck would have it, it got caught, he added.

The Opposition parties have been repeatedly claiming that the Election Commission of India, colluding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is deleting and adding fraudulent votes in the voter rolls in various elections. The Congress leader has claimed that fraud has taken place in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, and also in various assembly segments, including in Karnataka Mahadevpura segment. (ANI)

Disclaimer: This news article is a direct feed from ANI and has not been edited by the News Nation team. The news agency is solely responsible for its content.