Is the ECI bending under pressure?: Mallikarjun Kharge accuses poll body of shielding BJP in Karnataka 'vote chori' case

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday accused the Election Commission of having "stonewalled crucial information" which he claimed was effectively shielding those behind alleged "vote chori".

Kharge shared on X a media report which claimed that the case related to an attempt to remove electors by forging Form 7, ahead of the Karnataka Assembly election in 2023 has gone cold since the ECI is yet to share crucial data needed to nab the accused.

"Understand the chronology. Ahead of the May 2023 Karnataka elections, Congress had exposed massive deletion of voters: in Aland Constituency. Thousands of voters were stripped of their rights through a very sophisticated operation of forging Form 7 applications," he alleged. There was no immediate response from the  poll body  on the charges but the poll body has in the past dismissed all such claims by the Congress as baseless.

Upping the ante over Rahul Gandhi’s poll rigging claims, the Congress in August  launched a web page where people can register to demand accountability from the Election Commission of India (ECI) against what it called “vote chori” and express support for his demand for digital voter rolls.  In a post on X in Hindi, Mr. Gandhi said “vote theft” is an attack on the basic democratic principle of ‘one person, one vote’, and asserted that a clean voters’ list is essential for free and fair elections.