EC calls Rahul Gandhi’s fresh ‘vote chori’ charges ‘baseless’: ‘No deletion can be done online’

The Commission emphasised that any modification in the electoral roll must be carried out strictly in line with due process

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has responded to the recent allegations levelled by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over voter list manipulation. The poll body described these allegations as “incorrect” and “baseless”.

“Allegations made by Rahul Gandhi are incorrect and baseless,” the poll body said in a statement, clarifying that “no deletion of any vote can be done online by any member of the public, as misconceived by Rahul Gandhi”.

Addressing the controversy over alleged deletions in Karnataka’s Aland Assembly constituency, the ECI pointed out that it was the Commission itself that had flagged anomalies last year.

“In 2023, certain unsuccessful attempts were made for the deletion of electors in the Aland Assembly Constituency and an FIR was filed by the authority of ECI itself to investigate the matter,” the statement noted.

The Commission also set the record straight on the constituency’s electoral history.

“As per records, Aland Assembly Constituency was won by Subhadh Guttedar (BJP) in 2018 and BR Patil (INC) in 2023,” it said.

Earlier today, Rahul Gandhi accused chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of protecting "vote chors" and people who have destroyed democracy, and cited data from a Karnataka Assembly constituency to claim that votes of Congress supporters were being systematically deleted ahead of elections.

In Karnataka's Aland, someone tried to delete 6,018 votes and got caught by coincidence, he said, alleging that names of voters of the Congress were being deleted systematically.

"The booth-level officer noticed that her uncle's vote got deleted and found her neighbour had deleted the vote of her uncle. She asked her neighbour who said he had no idea. It was found that some other force hijacked the process and deleted the vote -- and as luck would have it got caught," Gandhi said.

He claimed that 6,018 applications were filed impersonating voters and this filing was done automatically using mobile numbers from outside Karnataka.