'Entire country will ask for your affidavit': Rahul Gandhi slams EC; calls SIR a new form of 'vote theft'

NEW DELHI: Leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Monday launched a fresh attack on the Election Commission during his ongoing " Voter Adhikaar Yatra ," accusing the poll body of vote manipulation and criticising its demand for an affidavit from him amid his allegations of "vote chori."

Speaking at Gaya, Rahul Gandhi said, "EC is accountable; it is their 'theft' that has been caught but they ask me for an affidavit. I'd like to tell the EC, the entire country will ask for your affidavit...We are going to detect your 'theft' in every state, every Lok Sabha constituency, every Vidhan Sabha constituency and show it to the country."

He didn't hold back in warning election officials, and added: "Want to tell 3 election commissioners that when there'll be a INDIA bloc govt, we will take action against you for vote theft ."

Turning to Bihar's SIR exercise , he hit out sharply: "Like PM Modi talks of special package, EC brought special package for Bihar named SIR which means new form of vote theft."

He also recounted alleged electoral irregularities in other states, alleging large-scale manipulation: "Will you allow vote theft? For many years, we were having doubts about election. It became clear in Maharashtra elections , 1 crore new voters were added between the LS election, and the Assembly election. We won the LS elections, four months after, BJP alliance won, our votes did not decrease, BJP won at the constituencies where votes were added, means, Maharashtra, Haryana elections were rigged. We then started our own inquiry, chose one seat in Karnataka - Bengaluru Central, we found more than 1 lakh fake voters."

Earlier this month, Rahul Gandhi claimed in a detailed presser that the Election Commission was "colluding with BJP." He recalled the matter, saying, "I did a PC, I informed the ECI, votes are being stolen by five ways... I told it clearly, the ECI did not check, instead asked for affidavit from me. They want me to submit it in seven days, but the responsibility is theirs. I want to tell the ECI, the whole country will demand an affidavit from them. We are going to expose the gaps in every state... They are trying to steal votes with SIR, but the people of Bihar won’t allow it."