Rahul Gandhi To Expose EC-BJP Nexus As Congress Claims 70K Bogus Voters Tilted Bengaluru Poll

Bengaluru: The Congress party is all set to target Election Commission, charging that large scale electoral list malpractice had taken place at Bengaluru Central Parliamentary Constituency during the 2024 General Elections to Lok Sabha.

Recently, Leader of Opposition in the Parliament Rahul Gandhi had said that the Congress had solid proof in Karnataka, where the Election Commission had joined hands with the ruling BJP and indulged in electoral list malpractice.

Interestingly, among the Assembly constituencies coming under the Bengaluru Central Parliamentary seat, only two Assembly constituencies are being represented by the BJP. Rest of the Assembly seats were won by the Congress during the 2023 Assembly elections. In Lok Sabha elections, P C Mohan of BJP polled 6,58,915 votes, while Mansoor Ali Khan of Congress polled 6,26,208, conceding defeat with a margin of 32,707.

The constituency profile also indicates strong minority voter presence. When the counting began, Congress candidate Mansoo Ali Khan was leading by a margin of over 50000 votes till the last round. However, when the counting of Mahadevapura and C V Raman Nagar started, BJP polled over 90% of the polled votes and zipped past the Congress candidate, winning by over 32,000 votes margin.

The Congress had entrusted the review of election results to a private agency, for finding out the reasons for Congress defeat in more than eight constituencies, where it was hoping to win. The private agency has given a report stating that over 70,000 voters from outside the State had been newly included during 2024 elections and more than 30,000 traditional voters had been left out of the list. The agency has gone one step ahead and claimed that the 70000 new voters were from Maharashtra, mostly from Sangli district and after the elections in Karnataka, they had gone back to Sangli and voted there also.

The Congress is preparing a detailed graphic video of the entire episode, which would be handed over to the party high command. Rahul Gandhi is expected to release that video to the media during this Parliament Session itself.

The other constituency the Congress has doubts about is Bengaluru Rural District Constituency, where former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda's son-in-law Dr C N Manjunath defeated D K Suresh, brother of Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar.

Though the Congress has similar doubts in two Assembly constituencies coming under the Bengaluru Rural Lok Sabha constituency, the margin of defeat is over 3.2 lakh votes.

However, the Congress feels that a large number of bogus voters from Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh had come down to vote in both Rajarajeshwari Nagar and Yeshwanthpur Assembly constituencies.