Serious questions which must be addressed, EC must act: Shashi Tharoor on Rahul Gandhi's poll rigging claims

Shashi Tharoor. File Pic

Citing Rahul Gandhi's poll rigging claims, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday said these are "serious questions" which must be seriously addressed in the interest of all voters and urged the Election Commission to act urgently.

In a post on X, the Thiruvananthapuram MP said India's democracy is too precious to allow its credibility to be destroyed by incompetence, carelessness or worse, deliberate tampering.

Tagging a post by the Congress on Gandhi's press conference, in which the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha alleged a "huge criminal fraud" in polls, Tharoor said these are "serious questions" which must be seriously addressed in the interest of all parties and all voters.

"Our democracy is too precious to allow its credibility to be destroyed by incompetence, carelessness or worse, deliberate tampering. @ECISVEEP must urgently act & @SpokespersonECI should keep the nation informed," Tharoor said in his post.

Tharoor's remarks demanding action over Gandhi's claims assume significance as of late, he has been at odds with the party's stance on certain issues, including Operation Sindoor.

The differences first emerged after the government picked Tharoor to lead a diplomatic delegation to the US and other countries to convey India's zero-tolerance stance on terrorism following the April 22 Pahalgam attack.

At a press conference on Thursday, Gandhi made explosive claims of a "huge criminal fraud" in polls through collusion between the BJP and the Election Commission. He cited an analysis in a constituency in Karnataka and said it was "a crime against the Constitution".

Claiming the "vote chori model" was being used in many constituencies across the country, Gandhi also said that the judiciary needs to get involved in this because "the democracy that we love so much, does not exist anymore".

Gandhi said what his party collected through research was "criminal evidence" and alleged that the Election Commission was busy destroying such proof across the country.

Meanwhile, the BJP mocked Rahul Gandhi's disclosure to back his allegations of rigging in the Maharashtra assembly polls as a case of someone cutting the branch he is sitting on, and said the Congress and its allies won most of their seats where the number of voters had increased.