EC Must Address Rahul's Allegations

Beginning with the allegations of EVMs being manipulatable, the charges against the election commission of not conducting polls fairly has climaxed to the accusations of electoral rolls fraud by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday dropped what he has been claiming his atom bomb, accusing the commission of inflating the voters' lists in one of the seven Assembly constituencies in the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency in collusion with the BJP to ensure the party's victory.

He said a total of 1,00,250 fake voters were added to the lists in the constituency in five ways-- adding duplicate voters, fake and invalid addresses, bulk voters at a single address, invalid photos and misuse of Form 6, meant of inclusion of new voters. He alleged that Form 6 was misused to include elderly persons as voters.

He said the BJP won the Assembly seat by a margin of 1,14, 046, votes, with the fake votes contributing to it significantly, and the party also led on the seat in the Lok Sabha election. All the other Assembly seats were won by the Congress, he said. Chief electoral officer of Karnataka has asked Rahul to submit his evidence in an affidavit. In response, Rahul said nothing on the officer's suggestion, saying that, " "I am saying it to the people, take it as an oath. Interestingly, they have not denied it.''

The commission may come up with a considered and detailed response to the allegations after going through them. BJP said Rahul expresses selective concerns over alleged manipulation of electoral practices, targeting the states where BJP wins, leaving out the states where his party wins.

We all know that elections in India have never been of gold standard. There have been periods in the past where votes would be looted by the Congress henchmen and Lalu Prasad continued the Congress legacy when he was Bihar chief minister. EVMs introduction in the polls stopped this open loot of booths, yet questions were raised over its amenability to manipulations as well.

Instead of jumping the gun, we should wait for further developments on the latest episode of a series of allegations of electoral malpractices.