Mumbai, Nov 5 (IANS) Maharashtra Congress lashed out at the Election Commission of India (ECI) after the Leader of the Opposition (LoP), in Lok Sabha, addressed a second press conference on the “vote theft” in the country, asserting that this vote theft is a “coordinated crime” carried out by the BJP with the help of the election body.

“LoP Rahul Gandhi has provided the evidence which the ECI was asking for. It is working under pressure from the government. A large-scale technical scam has been committed in the voters’ list, and a coordinated crime is going on in connection with the registration of voters and the diversion of names in the voters’ list, but the ECI is sitting idle,” said the Maharashtra Congress chief Harshwardhan Sapkal.

He said that the BJP is “stealing votes” with the help of the Election Commission and is “stealing” the government itself.

“LoP Rahul Gandhi dropped a bombshell again, showing the country how the BJP and the Election Commission are killing democracy,” he said.

The Maharashtra Congress chief said that LoP Rahul Gandhi exposed the Election Commission by giving one-by-one evidence of how the votes were stolen in Haryana, but as per the saying “shameless is always happy”, there is no improvement in the work of the Election Commission.

Sapkal further said that a scam of 25 lakh votes has been exposed in Haryana, and in Maharashtra too, the BJP formed a government by “vote theft” using the same Haryana pattern in the assembly.

He said that while 47 lakh voters increased in Maharashtra in just six months, it showed that the voting increased by about 8 per cent.

“The same faulty voters’ lists are being used for the local body elections,” he said.

Sapkal pointed out that when the opposition parties demanded that those lists be corrected, they ignored them and announced the elections, all of which is in the BJP’s favour.

Meanwhile, NCP SP working president and party MP Supriya Sule said that LoP Rahul Gandhi’s presentation was data-driven, adding that if there are mistakes, the presser should be accepted.

“A woman who is not even a citizen is voting. We had complete faith in EC, but it is not coming with transparent data. They are letting the democracy down. We fought for fair elections,” she said.

Supriya Sule emphasised that the two allies of the BJP in Maharashtra should also join hands with the opposition, as they have also made claims with regard to duplicate voters.

“In a fair and vibrant democracy, we need fair and vibrant elections,” said Sule.

–IANS

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