Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday once again renewed his allegations of “vote theft” in the Maharashtra assembly elections and said its “cover-up” by the Election Commission is the confession.
His remarks came after a news report suggested that around 29,000 votes were added in six months before state polls in Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ assembly seat of Nagpur South West without mandatory verification checks.
Rahul Gandhi in a post on X, said, “In Maharashtra CM’s own constituency, the voter list grew by 8 per cent in just 5 months. Some booths saw a 20-50 per cent surge.
BLOs reported unknown individuals casting votes.”
The Congress leader said that media uncovered thousands of voters with no verified address.
“And the Election Commission? Silent – or complicit. These aren’t isolated glitches. This is vote theft. The cover-up is the confession,” the Lok Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli said.
“That’s why we demand the immediate release of machine-readable digital voter rolls and CCTV footage,” the former Congress chief said.
However, soon Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer countered the allegations and said that as informed by the Election Commission of India already, electoral rolls are shared with all recognised political parties.
The official said that during second Special Summary Revision-2024, which was taken up before the General Elections to Maharashtra Assembly- 2024, the copies of draft and final electoral rolls of all 288
ACs were provided to representatives of all recognised political parties including Congress.
The CEO said that between draft and final publication of rolls, 19,27,508 claims and objections were received for consideration.
ThebCEO said, “As per law, appeal can be filed against wrongful additions or deletions in the Electoral Rolls. Only 89 Appeals were received.”
Meanwhile, the poll panel has recently declined to share CCTV footage of polling stations citing privacy concerns while defending the preparation of electoral rolls.
Rahul Gandhi had earlier written articles in several newspapers calling the Maharashtra election “match fixing”.
Congress General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal also took to X and said: “The Maharashtra Election mega scam keeps revealing more and more anomalies and the EC’s “silence on such grave revelations of absurd surges in booths points to a massive cover up”.
He said that Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly demanded “complete transparency” but the EC is refusing to disclose machine-readable voter lists.
“The integrity of our electoral system has reached its nadir under the present regime, with constitutional authority evading accountability and ruling party leaders coming to defend it.
If this isn’t match fixing, what is?” Venugopal said.
