EC manipulated poll process to help TRS win elections: Congress

Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Chief Spokesperson Dr. Dasoju Sravan has accused the Election Commission of India, especially Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar, of helping TRS win elections through fraudulent means.

Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan on Thursday, Sravan alleged that the ECI and CEO executed the conspiracy hatched by TRS to win the elections through tampering of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and other irregularities. He said that the EC deprived over 22 lakh people of their voting rights by deleting their names from the electoral rolls. Despite Congress party taking up the issue at the highest level including the Supreme Court, the poll authorities did not act as per law and openly favoured the TRS. He said CEO Rajat Kumar has acted in a highly condemnable manner. Rajat Kumar, in connivance with TRS and EC, has smothered the democracy in Telangana, he alleged.

Sravan said Rajat Kumar has facilitated poll irregularities at a large scale to favour TRS. He said the reality would come out if Rajat Kumar is subjected to lie-detector test. He said that the CEO has committed poll offences of such a magnitude that he should be punished publicly as it is done in Gulf countries. He said that the TRS has come to power not through voting by people, but through fraudulent means like EVM tampering. He said that the people of Telangana have voted for the candidates of Congress party and its allies. However, by manipulating the EVMs the results were turned in favour of ruling TRS. He said it was shocking that the villages where TRS leaders were denied entry during the campaign got all votes in favour of TRS. This was done only through EVM tampering, he alleged.

The Congress leader alleged that the policemen were used as TRS workers at many places. He alleged that poor villagers were harassed, intimidated and even beaten by the police at many places to keep them away from the poll process. He also alleged that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao and his son K. Tarakarama Rao also engineered the defeat of some TRS candidates like Jupally Krishna Rao, Tummala Nageshwara Rao and Madhusudan Chary as they were being considered a liability.

Sravan, who had contested as Praja Kutami candidate from Khairtabad constituency, pointed out that the Congress party had demanded that the 100% counting of VVPATs in Khairtabad on 9th and also on 11th December. However, the CEO did not accept the demand. He said the resistance shown by the Election Commission in counting the VVPAT slips clearly indicate that the EVMs were manipulated after the end of actual polling process. Since counting of VVPAT slips would expose the fraud behind EVMs, the EC and CEO did not consider the demand of Congress party, he said while pointing specific cases of mismatch between the numbers of votes counted in EVMs and those mentioned in the lists of Returning Officer.

The Congress leader said that the role played by the Election Commission in general and CEO Rajath Kumar in particular has put the very survival of democracy in danger. He said that the Election Commission was remote controlled by TRS throughout the polling process ever since the dissolution of Assembly on September 6. Stating that Congress President Rahul Gandhi was all set to become the next Prime Minister of India next year, he said the next Congress Government at the Centre would probe and expose the conspiracies behind poll irregularities through EVM and other means by TRS and other officials like CEO Rajat Kumar. He said that the Congress party would not remain a mute spectator to the murder of democracy by anti-democratic forces like TRS and others and it would fight against them.