Onus on EC to counter Rahul’s ‘vote chori’ charge
The Tribune Editorial: Rahul’s claim about one out of every eight voters in Haryana being fake is a serious charge that demands a thorough probe.
A day before the first phase of the Bihar Assembly elections, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi turned the spotlight on the 2024 Haryana polls, in which his party had suffered a shock defeat at the hands of the ruling BJP. Citing electoral roll data to claim that as many as 25 lakh entries were fake, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of colluding with the BJP to ensure its victory. This is Rahul’s biggest allegation of ‘vote chori’ so far — arguably his so-called H-bomb — and also his strongest attack on the ECI. Earlier this year, he claimed that such malpractices had taken place in Mahadevapura and Aland Assembly constituencies of Karnataka. His two-week-long Voter Adhikar Yatra in August was aimed at alerting Bihar’s electorate about alleged attempts by the BJP and the ECI to steal votes through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
