NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday rejected Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of voter list manipulation, pointing out that the Congress-led Karnataka government itself uses the same electoral rolls for its caste census policy.Sources told ANI that the Karnataka cabinet approved the use of electoral rolls as the base for conducting a caste survey. “At the same time LoP (Rahul Gandhi) was dropping the atom bomb on electoral rolls, the Congress government was vouching for their authenticity by basing their most important policy of caste census on them,” ECI sources said.On Thursday, Rahul alleged that 1,00,250 “fake votes” were created in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency to ensure a BJP win. The ECI said Rahul had never submitted a self-signed letter on the matter in the past, and that its responses to similar complaints sent through other entities had later been disowned by him. “For example, he raised the Maharashtra issue on December 24. Some advocate writes to us from AICC. Our reply dated 24 Dec 24 is on our website. But Rahul Gandhi says that we have never replied,” the sources said.According to ECI sources, Rahul has been asked to either sign declarations from the chief electoral officers of Maharashtra and Karnataka affirming his claims or apologise for what they termed “absurd” allegations. “If Rahul Gandhi believes in his analysis, he should have no problem signing the declaration. If not, he should apologise to the nation,” sources added.
