We show you our most important and recent visitors news details Row over 'vote theft' shakes Indian politics in the following article
Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - DELHI — A political row has erupted in India over allegations of "vote theft", with opposition parties accusing the country's election body of irregularities, which they say favoured the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 general elections.
On Tuesday, parliament was adjourned after opposition MPs demanded a debate on the integrity of India's electoral process.
A day earlier, dozens of opposition leaders, including Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, were briefly detained by the police in the capital Delhi, as they tried to march to the Election Commission of India's (ECI) headquarters.
Gandhi first raised the issue at a 7 August press conference in Delhi, and has since managed to galvanise strong support from hundreds of opposition lawmakers.
The Election Commission and the BJP have aggressively rejected the allegations.
Gandhi has alleged widespread voter manipulation during the 2024 parliamentary elections, citing granular data obtained from the electoral body itself - though the ECI and the ruling party dispute his interpretation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi secured a historic third term in the elections, but his BJP-led alliance fell short of the sweeping majority predicted. Voter turnout averaged 66% in the world's largest election, with nearly a billion registered voters - one in eight people on Earth.
Gandhi cited electoral data for Mahadevapura, a part of the Bangalore Central parliamentary constituency, and claimed that the voter list had more than 100,000 manipulated entries, including duplicate voters, invalid addresses, and bulk registrations of votes at single locations.
He presented examples of voters like Shakun Rani, who he claimed cast her ballots twice - a claim disputed by the election body.
Gandhi also alleged CCTV footage from polling booths was deleted and pointed out an instance of 80 people registered in a single address in Mahadevapura.
The Congress leader says his party lost at least 48 seats in the elections due to such irregularities and has accused India's election body of failing to enforce the "one man, one vote" principle. The Congress won 99 of the 543 seats in the elections, behind BJP's 240.
Gandhi has demanded that the ECI release digital voter rolls, so that they can be audited by his party and the public.
The BBC hasn't independently verified Gandhi's claims.
Soon after Gandhi's press conference, ECI responded on social media platform X, calling his allegations "absurd" and denying many of his claims.
The polling body has demanded that he either submit a signed declaration under oath or apologise to the nation.
ECI's Karnataka state unit further said that the Congress didn't file formal objections when the electoral roll was being revised ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.
The poll body earlier said it keeps CCTV footage only for 45 days after results - the window for filing election disputes.
BJP leaders have also strongly rebutted the allegations.
"This anarchy is extremely worrying and dangerous for democracy," BJP leader and federal education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said.
Federal agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said Gandhi and the opposition alliance were "defaming democracy, tearing it to shreds, and tampering with the dignity of constitutional institutions".
Gandhi's allegations have led to an uproar as they come in the backdrop of a controversy over a month-long revision of electoral rolls in Bihar state, where key elections are scheduled for November.
The Special Intensive Revision (SIR), held between June and July, saw officials visit all 78.9 million voters in the state for verification - the first update since 2003.
The ECI says the drive targets duplicate and deceased voters, but critics say its haste has disenfranchised many, especially migrants and minorities.
Many voters in Bihar have told the BBC that the draft rolls have wrong photos and include dead people.
India's Supreme Court is currently hearing a batch of petitions challenging the SIR, with petitioners demanding publication of the deleted names - about 6.5 million - with reasons for their removal.
The election body says deletions include 2.2 million dead, 700,000 enrolled more than once and 3.6 million who have migrated from the state.
Corrections are open until 1 September, with over 165,000 applications received. A similar review will be conducted nationwide to verify nearly a billion voters.
The court has said that the allegations of disenfranchisement "largely appears to be a case of trust deficit, nothing else" and that it would "step in immediately" if mass exclusion of voters is proven.
On 12 August, Gandhi escalated his claims of vote theft, saying such manipulation was happening "at a national level and systematically".
Highlighting the case of a 124-year-old voter's name found in the draft electoral list of Bihar he said: "There are unlimited cases like that. 'Abhi picture baki hai' [the story is not over yet]." — BBC
These were the details of the news Row over 'vote theft' shakes Indian politics for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Saudi Gazette and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.
