Submit declaration under oath in 7 days or claims will be invalid: CEC on Rahul's allegations

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi should either give a declaration under oath within seven days on his allegations of irregularities in the voter list or his 'vote theft' claims would be considered invalid.

Addressing a press conference, the CEC said that if anyone wishes to file a complaint without being a voter of that constituency, it can be done only as a witness under oath.

“If no declaration under oath given within 7 days, claims will be considered baseless and invalid…,” he said.

Levelling allegations of "vote chori", Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had on July 31, through a presentation at a press conference, cited data from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to show how over 1 lakh votes were "stolen" in Mahadevapura assembly segment in Karnataka through five types of manipulation, including duplicate voters, fake and invalid addresses, single-address voters. He had also alleged similar irregularities in other states.

The chief electoral officers of several states had asked Gandhi to file an affidavit under oath on his claims, but Gandhi has refused to do so.

Addressing a gathering in Bihar's Sasaram at the launch of his 1,300 km 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' on Sunday, Gandhi said that while he was asked to submit an affidavit after his press conference exposing vote chori, no such demand was made from BJP leaders who made claims in their presser.

The Yatra is part of the opposition INDIA bloc's stepped-up attack against the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar and on the allegations of ‘vote chori’ raised by the Congress.