ELECTION COMMISSION MUST RESTORE FAITH IN DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

ELECTIONS should be free and fair for democracy to be just and meaningful. The allegations raised by Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, have cast a disturbing shadow on the impartiality of the Election Commission of India and brought recent elections under a cloud of suspicion.

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The Congress leader accused the EC of colluding with the BJP to facilitate 'vote theft'. Citing an analysis of the voter list for the Mahadevapura assembly seat, part of the Bangalore Central parliamentary constituency, Gandhi claimed that 1,00,250 "fake votes" were created to ensure a win for the BJP in 2024. He also hinted at largescale manipulation across the country. Relying on his team's analysis of documents provided by the EC, he alleged the presence of duplicate voters, those with invalid addresses, bulk voters at the same address, and voters with invalid photos on the rolls, besides 33,692 cases of mi