Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday backed Rahul Gandhi’s ‘vote chori’ charges against the Election Commission of India (ECI), asserting that there are "serious questions, which must be seriously addressed in the interests of all parties and all voters".
Taking to X, Tharoor reshared a video of Rahul Gandhi providing insights into alleged manipulations and said, “These are serious questions which must be seriously addressed in the interests of all parties & all voters. Our democracy is too precious to allow its credibility to be destroyed by incompetence, carelessness or worse, deliberate tampering. @ECISVEEP must urgently act & @SpokespersonECI should keep the nation informed.”
This comes after Rahul Gandhi on Thursday presented what he called “concrete evidence” of widespread electoral rigging. Gandhi alleged large-scale vote chori (vote theft) since the 2024 polls, and described the electoral process as “staged". He claimed the EC was in cahoots with the BJP and manipulated results.
He also alleged widespread irregularities in voter lists during both central and state elections. At the centre of the allegations was the Mahadevpura assembly segment in Karnataka, where he alleged the BJP gained an inflated lead of 1,14,046 votes, enabling it to win the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha seat by 32,707 votes, even though Congress led in most other segments.
The LoP sought access to machine-readable voter data from the past 10-15 years and CCTV footage from polling stations. “If the EC does not give us machine-readable data for the past 10-15 years and the CCTV footage, they are partaking in the crime,” he said.
Gandhi presented this twice on Thursday. First, during a press conference at the AICC's Indira Bhawan headquarters and then at the INDIA bloc dinner meeting. Gandhi took 50 leaders from 25 parties through the irregularities that took place, he claimed, in Karnataka and Maharashtra.
His allegations have sparked a massive row, even pushing the Election Commission to demand that he formally seek an investigation or submit a declaration under oath.
Meanwhile, Tharoor’s latest remarks also signalled a shift in tone, following nearly six months of reported indifferences with the party leadership. It began with Tharoor lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi to criticising the Emergency period. His remarks on the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor also did not sit quiet well with the Congress leadership, for which he has drawn the ire of his own party.
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