Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi said Friday the Congress had an “atom bomb” of proof that the Election Commission (EC) was “stealing votes” for the BJP and when the matter comes to light, the poll panel will have “no place to hide”. Responding to him, the EC said it “ignores such baseless allegations being made on a daily basis” while the BJP criticised the Congress leader’s “undemocratic and undignified” language.

Asked about the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, which Opposition parties have been protesting against, Gandhi told reporters at the Parliament complex, “I have said ‘vote chori (stealing of votes)’ is happening and now we have open-and-shut proof that the Election Commission is involved in ‘vote chori’.”

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“I am not saying this lightly. I am saying this with 100% proof. As soon as we release it, the whole country will know that EC is indulging in ‘vote chori’. It is doing it for the BJP … We believe that vote theft has happened at the state level (in Maharashtra). Voter revision happened, and a crore voters were added. Then we went into detail, seeing that the EC is not helping, and decided to dig deep into this. We got our investigation done, it took six months, and what we have found is an atom bomb. When it explodes, the EC will have no place to hide anywhere in the country,” Gandhi said.

He warned that EC officials “involved” in this would not be spared. “This is treason, nothing less than that. You may have retired, you may be anywhere, we will find you.”

The Congress leader’s remarks came after he and other Opposition leaders wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, urging him to schedule a special discussion on the ongoing voter list revision in Bihar. The Opposition has alleged the SIR exercise is aimed at “disenfranchising voters” ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections and has been demanding a discussion on the issue in both Houses.

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On Thursday, the Congress claimed that on August 5, it would expose the “outrageous rigging of voter rolls” by the State Election Commission in Karnataka and would not allow electoral “malpractices” to go unchecked.

EC, BJP response

Responding to Gandhi, the EC said in a statement: “The Election Commission ignores such baseless allegations being made on a daily basis and despite the daily threats being given, asks all election officials to ignore such irresponsible statements and work in a fair and transparent manner.”

The poll panel said it had sent Gandhi an email on June 12, inviting him to meet its officials, but the LoP did not respond. The Congress leader, the EC said, had never written to it to raise any of the issues he has publicly spoken about.

Targeting Gandhi, the BJP said the Congress leader should “flow like water” instead of “exploding like a bomb”. Targeting the LoP for using “undemocratic and undignified” language to target the EC, it added, “If they will explode a bomb, we will save the Constitution.”

Accusing the Congress of having no faith in democracy, BJP MP Sambit Patra told reporters, “Will Rahul Gandhi explode like a bomb? What do you think? Their job is to explode. They have no other work to do … Think what kind of language this is: I (Gandhi) will explode on the Election Commission.”

“You say ‘I will go to the Supreme Court against the Election Commission’ or ‘I will protest against it in a democratic manner’, but ‘exploding like a bomb’? The language (of Gandhi) itself is undemocratic and undignified,” he added.