Leader of Congress and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Tuesday, went a step further and criticised the Election Commission of India (ECI), saying that it has been quiet over alleged voter list irregularities in the state of Maharashtra and especially in the Constituency of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. In a social media (platform X) posting, Gandhi alleged that the voter list in the seat of the CM had swelled by a range of 8 per cent in an interval of 5 months and in a few booths by 20-50 per cent. He claimed that unknown voters were casting their votes and claiming that thousands of voters did not have confirmed addresses, all through the help of booth-level officers (BLOs).
They are not unsociable glitches. That is voter theft. It is the confession of the cover-up, wrote Gandhi. He once again called upon the immediate release of machine-readable digitised voter rolls and CCTV footage in order to promote transparency in the electoral process.
Dismissing the accusations given by Gandhi, ECI officials urged that the Commission had made an attempt to meet Gandhi to discuss the issues he raised, but had been unresponsive. He received a letter that bore June 12 as the date, which was titled; Invitation to an interaction with the Commission, to talk about the concerns and even come personally to meet the Commission to discuss all of them. According to the ECI, this needed to have been brought up by way of election petitions or via first-hand discussions.
The authorities also cited that the Congress had made the same observation after the November 2024 election to the Maharashtra Assembly, and the party had already received the detailed response on December 24. The Congress has not yet availed itself of the opportunity, although others, like other political parties, were invited to meet the Commission. Their planned meeting on May 15 was called off, and no new date has been set.
On the contrary, other parties such as the BJP, the BSP, the CPI(M) and the AAP have already filed their representations to the ECI.
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