NEW DELHI — In a move that is expected to address a growing political controversy, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced it will hold a press conference on Sunday, August 17, at 3:00 PM at the National Media Centre in New Delhi. This will be the first press conference by the constitutional body since the completion of the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar.
The announcement comes as the opposition, led by Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, is set to launch a major campaign against the ECI’s voter list revision. Gandhi will kick off his ‘Vote Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar on Sunday, a fortnight-long march to protest what he has called “vote theft” and “voter fraud.”
Over the past few weeks, Rahul Gandhi has made a series of serious allegations against the ECI and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On August 1, he accused the ECI of being “directly involved in large-scale voter fraud” to benefit the BJP, claiming to have “open-and-shut proof.” He later doubled down on these claims, citing an internal party analysis of the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in Karnataka, where he alleged “vote chori” (vote theft) of over 1 lakh votes.
The ECI has been in a public tussle with Gandhi over the allegations, with the commission previously asking him to sign a formal declaration supporting his claims or apologize to the nation. The poll body has rejected his allegations as “false” and “absurd.”
The SIR exercise in Bihar, which has seen a significant reduction in the number of electors in the draft voter list, has become a flashpoint for the opposition. The INDIA bloc has accused the ECI of “silent invisible rigging” and has been demanding a discussion on the issue in Parliament. The ECI’s press conference on Sunday is seen as a direct response to these heightened tensions and is expected to provide an official statement on the Bihar voter revision and the allegations leveled against it.
For the press conference, the ECI has stipulated that only journalists, photographers, and TV camerapersons accredited with the Press Information Bureau (PIB) will be granted entry. The PIB is the nodal agency for disseminating government information to the media and accrediting journalists.