Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Feb 7: Amidst reports of strains within the three-party Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance in Maharashtra following its debacle in the recent Assembly elections, the leaders of the three parties on Friday held a joint media conference in New Delhi and again raised questions about the impartiality of the Election Commission of India in conducting the state elections.
The Congress leader and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi in a pointed question to the ECI wanted to know how 9.7 crore people cast votes in the state Assembly elections when the state has an adult population of 9.4 crore people.
“We are not levelling any allegations against ECI. We only want the final voters list. It is your responsibility to ensure transparency. As per government data, the population eligible to vote in Maharashtra is 9.54 crore. However, 9.7 crore people exercised their franchise in the Assembly polls. How is that possible?” he asked.
He added: “32 lakh voters were added between the Assembly polls in 2019 and the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 while 39 lakh voters were added between the Lok Sabha polls in 2024 and the Assembly polls the same year. This was done in just five months. As the LOP, I spoke about this in Parliament, but the EC has not responded yet.”
In a joint press conference with the leaders of the INDIA bloc including Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut and NCP-SCP MP Supriya Sule, Mr Gandhi said Congress, Shiv Sena-UBT, NCP-SS demand from the Election Commission voters’ list of Maharashtra. “We have been telling EC about anomalies in Maharashtra polls, we need voters’ lists of Lok Sabha polls, Assembly elections,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi accused the Election Commission of “wrongdoing” in the Maharashtra Assembly elections and said several anomalies have been spotted by the Opposition in the voter list. Mr Gandhi said: “We represent on this table – the entire opposition that fought the last election in Maharashtra. We are going to bring some information about the election. We studied the details – the voters and the voting list. Our teams have been working, and we have found many irregularities.”
He further added that the Election Commission should bring transparency and it has the responsibility to share the voters’ list. “We are now heading towards complete destruction of Constitution. But, we are in the business of protecting the Constitution,” Mr Gandhi added.
He said the next step would be to knock at the doors of the judiciary. “It is surprising to me that the EC is not ready to give us voter lists and the only reason possible is that there is something wrong and they know it,” Gandhi claimed.
“If EC is alive, it should answer questions posed by Rahul Gandhi,” Mr Raut said and added that, “it will be construed EC is a slave to government.” The ECI reacted to Mr Gandhi’s allegations of irregularities in the Maharashtra Assembly Elections and said it would respond in writing and added that the commission deeply values views, suggestions, and questions which are raised by the political parties.
“ECI considers political parties, as priority stakeholders, of course the voters being the prime & deeply values views, suggestions, questions coming from political parties. Commission would respond in writing with full factual &procedural matrix uniformly adopted across the country,” stated the Election Commission on X.
Joking on Mr Gandhi’s allegations, the Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said the Congress leader was only trying to cover up for the rout it was certain to suffer when the votes in the Delhi Assembly elections were counted on Saturday.
Talking to reporters in Nagpur, Mr Fadnavis, a senior BJP leader, maintained the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha needed to introspect otherwise there will be no revival of the Congress. “Rahul Gandhi is doing cover firing after sensing huge defeat for the Congress in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha elections,” he told reporters soon after three opposition parties’ alleged irregularities in the voter list of Maharashtra. Mr Fadnavis pointed out that the Election Commission has already answered all questions regarding the increase in voters in Maharashtra.
Recently, Rahul Gandhi had levelled two allegations in Parliament pertaining to the polls — first, that 70 lakh voters were added to Maharashtra’s electoral rolls in five months between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, and second, that 7,000 new voters were registered from the address of one building in Shirdi.
On November 29, six days after the Maharashtra Assembly election results were announced, the Congress wrote to the EC and a delegation met the Commission to raise what it called a “shocking” 13% increase in electors in the state since the Lok Sabha elections. The Congress representation to the EC sought “raw data” for the 39 lakh electors added to the rolls.
In response, the EC wrote back on December 24 that there had been 48,81,620 additions and 8,00,391 deletions, leading to a net addition of 40,81,229 electors in the state from the time of the Lok Sabha elections to the Assembly polls. The EC said after the amendment to the Representation of the People Act, there are now four qualifying dates for new electors who turn 18: January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1. The EC said the additions included 8,72,094 electors of the 18-19 age cohort and 17,74,514 electors of the 20-29 years cohort.
“Thus, 26,46,608 young electors falling in the age group of 18-29 were added out of total addition of 40,81,229 electors during the period. This is a welcome trend of participation of youth, the future of our democracy. Thus, the additions made during the period in a large state like Maharashtra have no visible abnormal trend,” the EC had replied.
