SLUGFEST: Rahul alleges ‘match-fixing’ in Maha polls; EC calls it absurd, BJP hits back

New Delhi: Even as the Election Commission of India dismissed his allegations of “match fixing’’ in the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly polls, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday pressed his demand for transparency from the poll body, urging it to release consolidated, digital voter rolls. Gandhi alleged this “match fixing’’ would next happen in Bihar where Assembly polls are scheduled later this year.

The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha claimed that the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections were a “blueprint for rigging democracy’’ even as the Election Commission rejected the charge saying defaming the poll panel after an unfavourable verdict is absolutely absurd.

Addressing the Election Commission directly, Gandhi stated, “Dear EC, You are a Constitutional body. Releasing unsigned, evasive notes to intermediaries is not the way to respond to serious questions. If you have nothing to hide, answer the questions in my article and prove it by publishing consolidated, digital, machine-readable voter rolls for the most recent elections to the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabhas of all states, including Maharashtra, and releasing all post-5pm CCTV footage from Maharashtra polling booths. Evasion won’t protect your credibility. Telling the truth will.”

The Election Commission dismissed Gandhi’s claims of last year’s Maharashtra Assembly election results being rigged as vague and “completely absurd”, issuing a point-by-point rebuttal to the Congress MP’s voter fraud allegations.

Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi, while sharing his op-ed in The Indian Express claimed that the Maharashtra assembly polls were conducted in a manner that favoured the BJP and alleged that the voter lists were inflated with fake voters.

He further alleged that the law governing the appointment of Election Commissioners and the Chief Election Commissioner was amended to heavily favour the Centre by removing the Chief Justice of India (CJI) from the panel responsible for their selection.

The BJP also hit out at Gandhi over the allegations with party chief J P Nadda accusing the Congress leader of cooking up “bizarre conspiracies” and “fake narratives” out of desperation after losing a series of elections.

As the two rival parties and EC sparred over the issue, Gandhi again hit out at the poll after sources in the poll panel debunked his charges, saying evasion would not protect its credibility but telling the truth would.

EC sources wondered as to why instead of writing to the poll panel directly, the Congress leader is seeking replies through newspaper writeups.

Gandhi made the allegations related to Maharashtra polls in an article published in several newspapers and later in his posts on X.

“My article shows how this (rigging) happened, step by step: Step 1: Rig the panel for appointing the Election Commission. Step 2: Add fake voters to the roll. Step 3: Inflate voter turnout. Step 4: Target the bogus voting exactly where the BJP needs to win. Step 5: Hide the evidence,” Gandhi alleged in his post.

Gandhi said fixed elections are a “poison” for any democracy, and the side that cheats may win the game, but it damages institutions and destroys public faith.

Lashing out at Gandhi, Nadda said his article is a “blueprint for manufacturing fake narratives”, owing to his sadness and desperation of losing election after election.

Nadda countered, “Here’s how he does it, step by step. Step 1: The Congress Party gets defeated in election after election due to its antics. Step 2: Instead of introspecting, he cooks up bizarre conspiracies and cries rigging. Step 3: Ignores all facts and data. Step 4: Defames institutions with zero proof.”

He added, “Step 5: Hopes for headlines over facts. Despite being exposed time and again, he shamelessly keeps peddling lies. And, he is doing this because a defeat in Bihar is certain.”

Democracy doesn’t need drama. It needs truth, Nadda asserted.

Any misinformation being spread by anyone brings disrepute to the thousands of representatives appointed by political parties during polls and demotivates poll staff working tirelessly for the gigantic exercise, the EC sources said.

They said that “unsubstantiated” allegations raised against the electoral rolls of Maharashtra are an affront to the rule of law.

Rahul Gandhi said that he doubted the fairness of Indian elections, “not every time, not everywhere, but often. I am not talking of small-scale cheating, but of industrial-scale rigging involving the capture of our national institutions”. He alleged that voter turnout figures were inflated.

“Election Commission data show that the number of registered voters in Maharashtra in the 2019 Vidhan Sabha elections was 8.98 crore, which rose five years later to 9.29 crore for the May 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

“But a mere five months later, by the November 2024 Vidhan Sabha elections, the number had leapt to 9.70 crore. A crawl of 31 lakh in five years, then a leap of 41 lakh in just five months,” Gandhi said.

So incredible was this leap that the registered voter total of 9.70 crore was even greater than the 9.54 crore adults in Maharashtra, according to the government’s own estimates, he said in his article.

On voter turnout on polling day, Gandhi said that “the polling turnout at 5 pm was 58.22 per cent. Even after voting closed, however, turnout kept increasing more and more. The final turnout was reported only the next morning to be 66.05 per cent.”

“The unprecedented 7.83 percentage point increase is equivalent to 76 lakh voters - much higher than previous Vidhan Sabha elections in Maharashtra”.

In its rebuttal, the BJP also accused Gandhi of attacking democratic institutions to undermine people’s trust in the electoral process, claiming he was doing so to pre-empt his party’s defeat in the upcoming elections.

Slamming Gandhi over his accusations, BJP IT department head Amit Malviya accused the Congress leader of deliberately making repeated attempts to sow seeds of doubt and dissension in the minds of the voters about the poll process.

The BJP leader pointed out that when Congress wins an election, be it in Telangana or Karnataka, the same system is hailed as “fair and just, “but when they lose, from Haryana to Maharashtra, the whining and conspiracy theories begin, without fail.”

“This is straight out of George Soros’ playbook -- systematically erode people’s faith in their own institutions, so they can be cracked open from within for political gains,” he wrote on X.