‘Vote Chori’ claim an insult to the Constitution; not afraid of fake charges: EC responds to Rahul’s criticism

New Delhi: The Election Commission on Sunday hit back at allegations of “vote chori,” calling them “an insult to the Constitution” and accusing the opposition of attempting to mislead the public.

Speaking at a press conference, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar said, "Some voters alleged double voting. When asked for proof, no answer was given. Neither the Election Commission nor any voter is afraid of such false allegations. When politics is being done by targeting the voters of India by keeping a gun on the shoulder of the Election Commission, today the Election Commission wants to make it clear to everyone that the Election Commission fearlessly stood like a rock with all the voters of all sections and all religions including the poor, rich, elderly, women, youth without any discrimination, is standing and will continue to stand."

Gyanesh Kumar also pointed out that election results can be legally challenged within 45 days through an election petition in the Supreme Court. It said that after this window closes, raising “baseless allegations, be it in Kerala, Karnataka, or Bihar” serves no purpose. The EC added that when no candidate or political party approaches the court within the stipulated time, making such claims later only reveals “the intention behind making such baseless allegations.”

He stressed that the EC works without bias. "As per the Constitution of India, every citizen of India who has attained the age of 18 years must become a voter and must also vote. You all know that, as per the law, every political party is born through registration with the Election Commission. Then how can the Election Commission discriminate among the same political parties? For the Election Commission, all are equal. No matter who belongs to any political party, the Election Commission will not step back from its constitutional duty,” he said.

The press conference came against the backdrop of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of “vote chori” linked to the “special” intensive electoral roll revision in poll-bound Bihar.

Gyanesh Kumar also referred to the misuse of voter data. "We saw a few days ago that photos of many voters were presented to the media without their permission. Allegations were made against them, and they were used. Should the Election Commission share the CCTV videos of any voter, including their mothers, daughters-in-law, daughters? Only those whose names are in the voter list cast their votes to elect their candidate..."

Highlighting the transparency of the electoral process, he added: "In the process of Lok Sabha elections, more than one crore employees, more than 10 lakh booth-level agents, more than 20 lakh polling agents of candidates work for the elections. In such a transparent process in front of so many people, can any voter steal votes?"

The conference was headed by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, along with Election Commissioners Dr. Vivek Joshi and Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, and other officials.

Earlier, the Congress hit back at the Election Commission, accusing it of having "crossed all limits of shamelessness", and said it is expected to the epitome of probity.

Congress general secretary, Organisation, K C Venugopal said if the Election Commission welcomed the scrutiny of electoral rolls, the chief election commissioner (CEC) and other election commissioners must come clean on why they still refuse to provide parties with machine-readable electoral rolls and CCTV footage.

"The ECI has crossed all limits of shamelessness by shrugging all its responsibilities in the face of grave allegations of vote theft and mass rigging. Constitutional authorities are expected to be the epitome of probity - not hide behind vaguely drafted press notes to hide their guilt in destroying democracy," Venugopal said in a post on X.

Seeking to counter opposition parties' allegations of fudging in voter data, the Election Commission has said it seems that some political parties did not examine the electoral rolls at the "appropriate time" to point out errors to the poll machinery and noted that it welcomes a scrutiny of the document to help its officials remove flaws.

Venugopal said the onus on catching the scale and volume of their vote theft cannot be on political parties and its BLAs.

He said the ECI claims "utmost transparency is the hallmark of electoral roll preparation".