'EC crossed all limits of shamelessness': Congress on alleged voter fraud and roll deletions

Venugopal questioned why the ECI continues to deny political parties access to machine-readable electoral rolls and why CCTV footage from election processes is deleted within 45 days.

The Congress, on Saturday, launched a sharp attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI), accusing it of “crossing all limits of shamelessness” and failing to uphold its constitutional responsibility in the face of allegations of large-scale voter fraud.

Congress general secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal said that while the poll panel claims “utmost transparency” in preparing electoral rolls, its actions suggest otherwise. He questioned why the ECI continues to deny political parties access to machine-readable electoral rolls and why CCTV footage from election processes is deleted within 45 days.

“If the ECI truly welcomes scrutiny of electoral rolls, then the Chief Election Commissioner and other commissioners must come clean on why they refuse to share machine-readable rolls and why they delete critical CCTV evidence. Constitutional authorities are expected to be the epitome of probity, not hide behind vaguely drafted press notes to cover up failures in safeguarding democracy,” Venugopal posted on microblogging site X.

The ECI has crossed all limits of shamelessness by shrugging all its responsibilities in the face of grave allegations of vote theft and mass rigging. Constitutional authorities are expected to be the epitome of probity - not hide behind vaguely drafted press notes to hide… pic.twitter.com/XKL9wsxFo6

— K C Venugopal (@kcvenugopalmp) August 16, 2025

The Congress leader also accused the Commission of stonewalling opposition MPs, refusing to explain the deletion of over 65 lakh names during the Bihar summary revision process, and quietly pulling down machine-readable rolls that had been uploaded earlier.

His remarks came after the EC, in a statement, countered opposition allegations by saying that some parties and their booth-level agents (BLAs) failed to flag errors during the statutory period provided for claims and objections after draft rolls were published.

The poll panel insisted it was open to scrutiny of the rolls and said such feedback helps officials remove flaws.

Venugopal, however, argued that the burden of catching “vote theft and mass rigging” cannot rest on political parties alone, blaming the ECI for what he alleged was “BJP-controlled manipulation of the democratic process.”