The Congress on Thursday hauled the Election Commission of India (ECI) over the coals for what it sees as a glaring double standard: Rahul Gandhi received an ECI notice within hours of his remarks on alleged poll irregularities on 7 August, but BJP leader and Union minister Anurag Thakur? Crickets.

The Opposition party also demanded that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections be “nullified” for being fought on “fake voter lists”, repeating a demand voiced by Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday.

At a press conference at the Congress headquarters, the party’s media and publicity department head Pawan Khera did not hold back. According to him, if the BJP already has the electronic voter list data, the Congress should get it too — because that data, he insists, would show that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was actually losing from Varanasi until he got a “booster dose of fake voters”.

“Nullify the Lok Sabha elections, which were fought on the basis of a fake voters list, as proved by the ruling party MP Anurag Thakur,” Khera said. “We took six months to collect data for one Assembly segment of Mahadevapura (in Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency). Mr Anurag Thakur got the electronic voter list of six Lok Sabha seats within six days. If this is not collusion, what else is?”

The ‘six Lok Sabha seats’ Thakur alluded to — using a slide show fairly similar to the one used by Gandhi during his press conference — are Wayanad (Priyanka Gandhi Vadra), Rae Bareli (Rahul Gandhi), Diamond Harbour (Abhishek Banerjee), Kannauj (Akhilesh Yadav), and Mainpuri (Dimple Yadav), apart from Kolathur Assembly seat (M.K. Stalin).