‘Afraid of truth’, ECI can no longer hide electoral malpractices: Rahul Gandhi
New Delhi: Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has said the Election Commission of India (ECI) has been so exposed over electoral malpractices that it can no longer hide its actions.
According to Kashmir Media Service, talking to reporters during a protest march to the ECI office in New Delhi, Rahul Gandhi said, “Three hundred MPs want to meet the Election Commission, but the Commission says you cannot come… because it is afraid of the truth.”
Gandhi said the refusal of the ECI to meet the MPs reflected the sorry state of democracy in India. He reiterated that the opposition was fighting not a political battle but a struggle to “save the soul of the country and the Constitution,” adding that the principle of ‘one person, one vote’ had been subverted through duplicate and fraudulent entries in voter lists.
Rejecting the ECI’s notice asking him to file his allegations on affidavit, Gandhi said he had quoted the commission’s own data and suggested it should verify the facts from its own website. He added that the opposition would continue to demand a clean and accurate voters’ list.
Earlier, about 300 opposition MPs, including Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, were stopped by police from marching to the ECI office to protest against alleged “vote theft” across India. Many MPs staged a sit-in on the road before being detained and taken to Parliament Street Police Station. They were later released.
