E-Paper
Allegations made by Rahul Gandhi are incorrect, baseless: Election Commission
The ECI asserted that no deletion can take place without giving an opportunity of being heard to the affected person
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday termed the vote theft allegations by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as “baseless and incorrect”.
ECI’s response to Gandhi came after the latter alleged the mass deletion of voters from Congress strongholds in Karnataka’s Aland constituency during the 2023 state assembly polls using the identity of local voters.
The leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha had accused the poll body of shielding “vote chors” and protecting “people who are destroying Indian democracy.”
Responding to his charges, the poll body said, “Allegations made by Rahul Gandhi are incorrect and baseless. No deletion of any vote can be done online by any member of the public, as misconceived by Gandhi. No deletion can take place without giving an opportunity of being heard to the affected person.”
The Commission further clarified that while there had been “unsuccessful attempts” to delete voters in Aland in 2023, a first information report (FIR) had been filed by the ECI itself to investigate the matter.
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“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. As per records, Aland Assembly Constituency was won by Subhadh Guttedar (BJP) in 2018 and BR Patil (INC) in 2023,” it said, adding that “no vote can be done online by any member of the public, as misconceived by Rahul Gandhi.”
Addressing media persons at the party headquarters Indira Bhawan in Delhi, Gandhi said Karnataka CID had written 18 times seeking details such as One Time Password (OTP) trails and destination ports involved in such deletions but the Election Commission of India (ECI) did not comply.
“The election commission has not given it because this will lead us to where the operations are being done,” said Gandhi. He demanded that the chief election commissioner (CEC) should give the data within a week.
