'CEC Gyanesh Kumar protecting people who destroyed Indian democracy,' alleges Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday launched yet another scathing attack on the Election Commission of India, accusing Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar of protecting vote theives. Addressing a special press conference at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi, the former Congress chief said that he is making the statements fully aware of his responsibility as the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. I'm going to show to black and white proof that the Chief Election Commissioner of India is protecting the people who have destroyed Indian democracy. I'm also going to show you how it is done, he said. Gandhi alleged that over the years, in different elections some forces have been systematically targeting millions of voters accross India. He alleged that the votes of communities, including Dalits, minorities, OBCs and Adivasis who were voting for the opposition, were specifically targeted. Now we have found how this is done, he said. I am not going to say anything on this stage that is not backed up by 100 per cent truth. I am somebody who loves my country, I love my constitution, I love the democratic process, and I am protecting that process. I'm not going to say anything here that is not going to be based on 100% proof that you can determine, Gandhi stressed. Explaining mass vote deletion in a constituency in Karnataka, Gandhi said, Aland is a constituency in Karnataka. Somebody tried to delete 6018 votes. We don't know the total number of votes that were deleted in Aland in the 2023 election. They are much higher than 6,018, but somebody got caught deleting those 6018 votes, and it was caught by coincidence. What happened was that the booth-level officer there noted that her uncle's vote was deleted, so she checked who deleted her uncle's vote, and she found that it was a neighbour who deleted the vote. She asked her neighbour, but they said I did not delete any vote. Neither the person deleting the vote nor the person whose vote was deleted knew. Some other force hijacked the process and deleted the vote, he said.