Either sign declaration or apologise: EC sources on Rahul's vote theft allegations

A day after Rahul Gandhi alleged vote theft in at least three states, Election Commission sources on Friday said if the Congress leader believes in his analysis and feels that his allegations against the EC are true, he should have "no problem" in signing the declaration under electoral rules and submit names wrongfully added or removed from voters' list.

However, if Gandhi does not sign the declaration, it would mean that he does not believe in his analysis and resultant conclusions and "absurd allegations". In which case he should apologise to the nation, they felt.

The Chief Electoral Officers of three states on Thursday asked Gandhi to share the names of electors he claimed were either included or excluded wrongfully from the voter lists along with a signed declaration for the poll authorities to initiate "necessary proceedings" in the matter.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha claimed on Thursday that there was "vote chori" of 1,00,250 votes in a Karnataka constituency, with 11,965 duplicate voters in the segment, 40,009 voters with fake and invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters or single address voters, 4,132 voters with invalid photos and 33,692 voters misusing Form 6 of new voters.