The Election Commission of India issued a detailed rebuttal on Friday evening amid furore over the ‘vote chori’ allegations levelled by Rahul Gandhi. The Congress MP claimed that an attempt was made to delete the names of more than 6,000 voters from the Aland constituency in Karnataka before the 2023 Assembly polls. The assertion came weeks after the Leader of Opposition alleged systemic deletions amounting to over 100,000 votes across India.
“No vote can be deleted online by any member of the public. No wrongful deletion of electors in Aland; an FIR was registered by the authority of ECI itself in 2023 against suspicious attempt of deletions…Although elector of the constituency can fill Form 7 online to apply for deletion of an entry from that particular constituency, it does not mean that the entry gets automatically deleted merely by submitting the Form 7,” the poll body said.
The poll body cited the Registration of Electors Rules to add that names were not deleted from the roll without issuing a notice to the affected person and giving them an opportunity of being heard.
What did Rahul Gandhi say?
Gandhi sparked fresh debate this week after accusing Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of protecting those who “destroyed democracy” and levelling fresh allegations of vote theft. He cited data from a Karnataka Assembly constituency to allege that votes of Congress supporters were being systematically deleted ahead of elections.
“I am going to make a serious claim about Gyanesh Kumar. I am not saying this lightly, I am the leader of opposition. The CEC is protecting vote chors and the people who have destroyed Indian democracy…I am the leader of opposition and I will not say anything which is not backed by 100% proof…I am someone who loves my country, I love my Constitution, I love the democratic process and I am protecting that process. In Karnataka’s Aland, someone tried to delete 6,018 votes and got caught by coincidence”, he had alleged.
What does the EC say?
The Election Commission said over 6,000 applications were submitted to delete names from the voters’ list in Aland constituency. But only 24 were found to be valid and approved while 5,994 were rejected after verification. The poll body claimed it had filed an FIR to investigate the investigate the suspicious deletion attempts in 2023 and added that a full inquiry remained underway.
An inquiry was also conducted after the poll body received 7,792 applications for new voter registration from Rajura, Chandrapur, Maharashtra. A total of 6,861 applications were found invalid and rejected upon verification.