Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, who has accused the in collusion with the BJP, said that his party lost around 70 seats by margins of less than 50,000 in last year’s Lok Sabha elections, sources told India Today TV.
The Raebareli MP said the Congress was working to see whether the victories in the constituencies by the BJP were genuine, according to sources. Gandhi batted for machine-readable voter rolls, but claimed that the Election Commission did not give permission to use them, they added.
On the other hand, Sachin Pilot said the Congress should maintain caution as the losing candidate should not blame vote theft alone to hide their failures, sources said.
The development comes as the Opposition, particularly Rahul Gandhi, attacked the Election Commission over voter theft and linked it to the ongoing .
On August 7, Rahul Gandhi alleged that fake people were being added to voter lists and attempted to validate his point by showing the Karnataka electoral rolls.
The Raebareli MP claimed there was a , in the Mahadevapura assembly segment of Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat, a charge countered and rubbished by the poll body.
The Election Commission has, time and again, rejected the claims of Rahul Gandhi and other Opposition leaders, .
Tensions simmered on Monday after a dozen Opposition MPs were detained while they over ‘vote chori’ charges. The march, which saw the participation of nearly 300 Opposition MPs, was stopped by police midway, prompting several members, including Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, to jump over the barricades.
Rebuffing the opposition’s vote fraud charges, the Election Commission shared video and document links detailing the measures taken to ensure transparency while chalking out the Bihar SIR plan, an exercise Opposition parties have strongly objected to, alleging irregularities and deliberately removing voter names at the behest of the BJP.
The poll body maintained that it took all measures possible to ensure transparency, citing meetings with several political parties before and after publishing the draft electoral roll in Bihar.