Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday alleged that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were rigged, claiming his party now has evidence to prove large-scale voter fraud.
Speaking at the Congress Party’s legal conference, Gandhi said the Election Commission of India was no longer acting independently and described the poll body as “dead”.
“The Lok Sabha election can be rigged and the 2024 Lok Sabha election was rigged,” Gandhi said while addressing party lawyers. He claimed the Congress had now gathered data and documents to back up its accusations. “We are going to prove this, we have data now,” he asserted.
Gandhi cited the example of one constituency where, according to him, out of 6.5 lakh voters on the rolls, 1.5 lakh were found to be fake.
“In one Lok Sabha constituency, we checked the voter list. We found 1.5 lakh voters turned out to be fake,” he alleged. He further claimed that the ruling BJP’s majority depended on this alleged manipulation. “Had they got 15–20 seats less, he (PM Modi) wouldn’t have become Prime Minister,” Gandhi said.
The Congress MP accused the Election Commission of failing in its constitutional duty, saying, “The Election Commission is dead in India.”
He said he had long harboured suspicions about the credibility of election outcomes, beginning with the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and subsequent state elections.
“I always had a suspicion that there was something wrong, right from 2014. I had a suspicion in the Gujarat Assembly elections already. This ability to win sweeping victories. The Congress Party doesn’t get a single seat in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat. This was surprising to me. Whenever we spoke, people said, where’s the proof?” he told the gathering.
According to Gandhi, his suspicions hardened after the Maharashtra elections.
“Then, something happened in Maharashtra. In the Lok Sabha, we won the election. And then four months later, we didn’t just lose, we were obliterated. We started to look seriously for electoral malpractice. We found that in Maharashtra, 1 crore new voters showed up between Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha. The bulk of those votes go to the BJP. Now I say with absolutely no doubt that we have proof,” he said.
The Election Commission, however, issued a firm rebuttal on Friday, dismissing Gandhi’s allegations as “baseless” and “irresponsible”.
In a statement, the poll body said, “The Election Commission ignores such baseless allegations being made every day and, despite the threats being given every day, it asks all election officials who are working in a fair and transparent manner to not pay heed to such irresponsible statements.”
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