A Congress delegation met Election Fee (EC) officers in New Delhi on Tuesday and raised considerations over alleged inconsistencies within the electoral course of for the Maharashtra Meeting polls, together with the difficulty of enormous numbers of deletions and additions within the voter record.
The opposition social gathering sought uncooked knowledge from the ballot panel to establish info.
The Congress delegation, together with Rajya Sabha MPs Abhishek Singhvi, Mukul Wasnik, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole, Gurdeep Singh Sappal and Praveen Chakravarty, met EC officers and defined the social gathering’s considerations over the polls.
“We had a dialogue in a constructive, cordial and constructive environment. I began by telling the Fee that we’re furthering the reason for democracy as a result of an uneven, non-level subject for elections straight impacts the primary construction of the Indian Structure,” Singhvi instructed reporters after the assembly.
He mentioned the delegation raised three-four fundamental points, together with giant variety of deletions from voter lists through the five-month interval between the Lok Sabha and the Meeting elections.
“We questioned the door-to-door surveys, that are mandatorily required earlier than deletions. Now we have requested for the uncooked knowledge for the shape concerned. For deletions, it’s Kind 7 and for additions it’s Kind 6,” he mentioned, including that the Congress sought booth- and constituency-wise knowledge for Maharashtra.
“This uncooked knowledge will inform us how there was such a big quantity and, if truly it was preceded by a door-to-door test. We expressed concern over the deletions as floor staff pointed to situations of 1 particular person having 250 kinds. Such en-masse, collective deletion smacks of nice suspicion and mistrust,” Singhvi mentioned.
He added the delegation additionally raised with the EC how, in a short while, 47 lakh additions have been made between the Lok Sabha and the Meeting polls.
“The EC states it’s 39 lakh. That’s not a small quantity. You need to set up transparency by displaying door-to-door surveys. Now we have requested for the uncooked knowledge,” he mentioned.
Singhvi mentioned in addition they flagged how EC knowledge confirmed the voter turnout at 58 per cent at 5 pm on November 20 and 65.02 per cent at 11:30 pm.
“Two days later, it was 66.05 per cent, which is a distinction of seven per cent. Now we have labored it out, it’s about 76 lakh voters. The EC instructed us that voter turnout is just not in actual time and Kind 17 C will give an identical determine. Nonetheless, we wish uncooked knowledge and it begs a proof how there may be that huge a distinction,” Singhvi mentioned.
He mentioned 118 constituencies, of which the BJP gained 102, had a further voter turnout of 25,000 in comparison with the Lok Sabha polls 5 months in the past.
“That is unnatural. We’d like uncooked knowledge for it,” he mentioned.
The EC has promised a point-by-point rationalization and rebuttal in future, Singhvi mentioned.
The Congress on November 29 raised with the EC “severe and grave inconsistencies” that it mentioned have been being revealed within the knowledge regarding the polling and counting processes for the Maharashtra polls and sought an in-person listening to to current related proof.
In a memorandum to the ballot panel, AICC Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala, Patole and AICC normal secretary Wasnik had mentioned “these obtrusive inconsistencies”, which struck on the very root of a clear, free and honest electoral system, weren’t primarily based on any biased motive or farfetched presumptions however had been extracted from the knowledge made publicly accessible by the Fee.
Of their memorandum, the Congress leaders had mentioned: “In truth, questions regarding Maharashtra’s voter knowledge have additionally been raised by a former chief election commissioner, therefore we’re bringing the identical to the eye of this Fee.”
“Within the days main as much as the polling day, the Indian Nationwide Congress and its allies acquired a number of ground-level reviews about completely different means being adopted by the ruling regime to commit large-scale electoral fraud throughout the Meeting constituencies in Maharashtra,” the memorandum mentioned.
The Congress leaders mentioned these included situations of arbitrary deletion of names from the voter record and consequent insertion of roughly 10,000 voters per constituency throughout Maharashtra.
“With this train of unchecked and arbitrary deletion and consequent insertion of voters, the state of Maharashtra witnessed an unprecedented improve of an estimated 47 lakh voters being added to the electoral roll from July-November 2024,” the memorandum mentioned.
