BJP Alleges Vote Theft; EVM Recount In Haryana Reverses Result

After Leader of Indian Opposition, Indian National Congress’ (INC) Rahul Gandhi’s expose of massive irregularities in voter’s list, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Anurag Thakur has made similar allegations on opposition leaders. On 13 Aug, Thakur said irregularities in voter registration in Rae Bareli, Wayanad, Diamond Harbour, and Kannauj parliamentary seats, and demanded that the respective representatives Rahul Gandhi (INC), Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (INC), Abhishek Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), and Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) resign as Members of Parliament. With BJP agreeing on vote theft, the integrity of the Election Commission of India—under whose watch the irregularities crept into the voter lists in favor of BJP—is fully compromised. It also raises the question on how the BJP leader got voter lists in machine readable format to compute the irregularities in a few days when it took INC six months to manually compute just one segment in one constituency. The opposition has persistently demanded that ECI provide them readable documents. BJP’s retort displays its underhand design which has been part of its strategy everywhere. The party uses individuals, state institutions and even political parties for its benefit but when time comes to stand up for them, it abandons them. ECI held a press conference but could not satisfactorily answer a single question raised by the opposition and media. Opposition parties from the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance have started the Vote Theft campaign all over the country. In Panjab, INC MP Dr. Dharamvir Gandhi carried out a protest march in Patiala. Similarly, INC Member of Legislative assembly Pargat Singh carried out a march in Jalandhar. Concurrently, in a first-of-its-kind exercise, the Supreme Court of India summoned Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and other records of the election of sarpanch (village council head) of the gram panchayat (village council) of Buana Lakhu village, Panipat, Haryana, and held recounting of votes on its premises, leading to the reversal of results. For long there have been allegations about vote theft through EVM. The recount proved the allegations true (earlier coverage).