Fact Check: Will Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee appear before SC to prove election fraud, EVM tampering?
A post claiming that Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, and 120 IAS officers will soon appear before the Supreme Court to expose Election Commission fraud is circulating on WhatsApp. The post also accused BJP and YCP of tampering with electronic voting machines (EVMs).
By Newsmeter Network Published on 5 Feb 2022 6:06 AM GMT
Hyderabad: A post claiming that Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, and 120 IAS officers will soon appear before the Supreme Court to expose Election Commission fraud is circulating on WhatsApp. The post also accused BJP and YCP of tampering with electronic voting machines (EVMs).
The post reads, "120 IAS officers will soon appear before the Supreme Court on fraud in the Election Commission. YCP won only 60 seats, tampering with the total. BJP tampered with 220 seats. Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee and 120 IAS officers collected solid evidence together to reveal the truth before a Supreme Court judge."
Fact Check:
The post has been circulating since 2019, indicating that the claim is not recent.
There are no reports that Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, and 120 IAS officers have found evidence of EVM tampering or have approached the Supreme Court in 2019 or later. There is also no evidence to prove that BJP or YCP have tampered with EVMs apart from the allegations raised.
Before the 2019 elections, leaders like Mamata Banerjee and Chandrababu Naidu had demanded that elections be conducted by ballot as EVMs could be tampered with. After the 2019 election results, one or two IAS officers had alleged that EVMs had been tampered with but these allegations were not substantiated.
According to reports, in 2019, Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora had said allegations of EVM tampering were "more than unfair" and were made with a "criminal intent". It was said that the machines could have malfunctioned but were not tampered with. When allegations were raised by former IAS officer Kannan Gopinathan on EVM tampering, the Election Commission had initiated a "rigorous scrutiny" of the questions raised. However, after scrutiny, the claims were not substantiated.
(Source: The Hindu Business Line, Indian Express, Economic Times)
It is clear that the claim that Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee, and 120 IAS officers will appear before the Supreme Court to expose Election Commission fraud is false.
