NEW DELHI: Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday raised fresh allegations of electoral malpractices during the November 2023 Maharashtra Assembly elections.
He threatened to move the court if the Election Commission of India (ECI) failed to provide him with a “centralised” electoral list for the state, complete with names, addresses, and photographs of voters. The Congress-led Mahayuti alliance, which had high hopes of winning the Assembly polls, faced a comprehensive defeat at the hands of the BJP-led alliance.
Speaking at a press conference alongside Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Supriya Sule and Shiv Sena-UBT leader Sanjay Raut, Rahul claimed 39 lakh voters were added to Maharashtra’s electoral list in the five months between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. He compared this figure to the population of Himachal Pradesh and alleged that the majority of these newly added voters supported the BJP, as the party’s vote share increased in the Vidhan Sabha polls compared to the Lok Sabha elections held in April-May 2024. He also pointed out that while 32 lakh voters were added between 2019 and 2024, another 39 lakh were added in just five months.
Rahul further questioned the discrepancy between the state’s adult population and the voter count. Citing Health Ministry data, he noted that Maharashtra’s adult population was 9.54 crore, while the voter list stood at 9.7 crore. “How can there be more voters than the total adult population in the state?” he asked. He also alleged that a large number of voters’ names were deleted from the electoral list. “If one has to put it nicely, one will say that the EC has lost control (over the voter list). Or else, one will say, the EC has manipulated,” he stated.
The ECI responded soon after the press conference, stating that it would provide a detailed written response with full facts. In a post on X, the ECI said, “The ECI considers political parties as priority stakeholders, with voters being the prime. The commission will respond in writing with full factual and procedural matrix uniformly adopted across the country.” The statement did not directly address Rahul or his allegations.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis dismissed Rahul’s claims as “baseless” and accused him of creating a narrative ahead of the February 8 Delhi election results. “Rahul Gandhi is doing a cover fire as he knows that after the February 8 Delhi election results, his party will be nowhere in Delhi. What will he speak on that day? He will have to create a new narrative, and he is doing rehearsals for it. If Rahul does not introspect and continues to console himself with lies, his party’s revival will not be possible,” Fadnavis said.