‘Playing Same Tune…’: Poll Body’s Kamal Nath Reference To Respond To Rahul Gandhi In Voter Fraud Row

Last Updated:August 08, 2025, 20:42 IST

The Election Commission of India challenged Rahul Gandhi to sign a formal declaration or apologise for his "vote fraud" claims in Karnataka.

LoP in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi addresses a press conference at AICC HQ, in New Delhi on August 7. (Image: PTI/Salman Ali)

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday responded to Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi over his “vote fraud" allegations in the Karnataka Lok Sabha polls and dared him to either sign a formal declaration for his claims or apologise to the nation.

While responding to the Congress leader’s claims, the poll body said the grand old party is “playing the same tune" by referring to a petition by ex-Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath about mistakes in the state electoral roll in 2018.

While referring to the Supreme Court’s decision on turning down Kamal Nath’s petition demanding a searchable PDF format for the state’s electoral rolls, the poll body said that the Congress had “tried to mislead the Supreme Court" by producing documents from a private website to demonstrate that there are mistakes in the electoral rolls.

The Congress had claimed that at least 36 voters were double-registered, an error the EC said had been rectified.

“Now, in 2025, they, being aware that the same trick cannot be played in the Court, tried to mislead the people by claiming irregularities in the electoral rolls inter alia that same names are occurring at different places," the ECI said as quoted by news agency ANI.

The poll body further cited one example – a voter by the name of Aditya Srivastava who was registered in three different states. “In fact, the name was rectified months ago," the ECI said.

The poll body further hit out at the Congress MP, saying, “The Kamal Nath judgement gives a settled position with respect to a machine-readable document and raising the same issues repeatedly shows Mr Gandhi has no respect for the Supreme Court."

The ECI said that instead of availing the legal processes, Gandhi is making baseless claims in the media. “Instead of availing the legal processes, he tried to sensationalize the issue by making baseless claims in the media. It is a settled proposition that if law requires a certain thing to happen in a certain manner, then it should be done in that manner only and not in any other manner," it added.

It reiterated its demand that Gandhi should either sign the declaration affirming his allegations or apologise to the country for “absurd allegations".

“Therefore, if Rahul Gandhi believes in his analysis, and believes his allegations are true, he should have respect for the law and sign a declaration… or apologise to the nation…" it said.

Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Vote Theft’ Allegations

On Thursday, Gandhi held a presentation in the national capital and accused the ECI of “colluding" with the BJP to “steal" over 1 lakh votes in the Mahadevapura assembly segment of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency in last year’s general elections.

He claimed that a deep analysis by a 40-member team of the Congress party found duplicacies, fake addresses of voters and false pictures, and suspicious Form 6 applications.

“EC was colluding with the BJP to steal elections. This is why they don’t give us machine-readable data," he alleged.

Rahul Gandhi said his party was ahead in all other assembly areas of Bangalore Central, but the BJP got a big lead of 1.14 lakh votes in Mahadevapura, which helped it win the seat by 32,707 votes.

Shobhit Gupta

Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben...Read More

Shobhit Gupta is a sub-editor at News18.com and covers India and International news. He is interested in day to day political affairs in India and geopolitics. He earned his BA Journalism (Hons) degree from Ben...

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August 08, 2025, 20:42 IST

News india ‘Playing Same Tune…’: Poll Body’s Kamal Nath Reference To Respond To Rahul Gandhi In Voter Fraud Row

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