In his January 15 address at the inauguration of the new Congress office, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi again claimed the Maharashtra assembly polls were ‘clearly wrong’ and pointed to ‘one crore additional voters’ in the state between Lok Sabha and assembly polls. He also sought that names and addresses of those who voted in assembly and Lok Sabha polls in the state must be shared for electoral transparency.
ET examines the Leader of Opposition’s red flags and ECI‘s Maharashtra elections stance:
One crore additions
According to Gandhi’s speech text on the INC website, the unexpected influx of almost a crore new voters between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha in Maharashtra poses a concern.
While Gandhi claims that a crore new ‘voters’ have been added in Maharashtra, his party’s representation to the EC on November 29, 2024 said that ‘more than 50,000 additions in 50 assembly constituencies (ACs) occurred between July and November 2024’. It further stated that the governing regime won 47 out of the 50 constituencies.
While the ECI has yet to respond to Gandhi, it answered in detail to the party submission on December 24, 2024, calling the INC allegations ‘misleading and factually wrong’.
Against Gandhi’s claim of a ‘crore plus’ increase in voters (those who voted, in EC jargon), the number of electors (those entitled to vote) has increased by 40.8 lakh, according to ECI’s response.
The poll panel has held that data clearly shows that there was addition of 48,81,620 electors and deletion of 8,00,391 in the state – resulting in a net addition of 40,81,229 electors in the electoral roll between the Lok Sabha election and the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha Election.
Of the 40,81,229 electors added during the period, as many as 8,72,094 electors were from the 18-19 age group and 17,74,514 electors of the 20-29 age group . In toto, 26,46,608 new additions were in the age group of 18-29 which was not an ‘abnormal trend’ in a large state like Maharashtra, as per ECI.
EC underlined that this was a welcome trend of participation of youth, made possible now due to four qualification dates in a year and ECI’s effort to enrol maximum eligible electors.
It also stated clearly there were additions of over 50,000 electors only in 6 ACs and not 50ACs, as alleged by INC.
The poll panel counted deletion of 8,00,391 electors in the electoral roll – an average of 2779 electors per AC. These, it held, were on account of death/ shifting and duplicate entries after following due process.
DATA SHARING
Gandhi said in his address at the inauguration of the new Congress office that EC ‘refused to give us voter list’ of the Maharashtra Election.
“If there is one crore increase in voters between Maharashtra Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha, it is the duty and the sacred responsibility of the Election Commission to show us exactly, why that has happened and they are refusing to do it”, Gandhi asked ‘challenging’ the poll panel.
The poll panel has held otherwise.
The Congress party had also written to ECI on December 10, 2024 seeking electoral roll data.
It its reply to the party, the poll panel has stated that the CEO, Maharashtra had revealed that INC had been informed and copies of draft rolls, claims and objections, were provided to INC ‘in all the constituencies of Maharashtra’ and that INC representatives indeed participated in revision of electoral rolls at various stages till the finalisation of electoral rolls.
It also pointed out that Rule 22 (c)of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 already provides that the Electoral registration officer (ERO) supply free of cost two copies of the finally published electoral roll to every recognised party’s representatives. The same is ‘uniformly followed in the entire country’.
Similarly, booth-wise Form 20 data, is made available on the website of the CEO.
“You will agree that such baseless accusations coming from a National Party of high standing creates unnecessary and avoidable doubts and anxiety in the mind of the public, even when the data is publicly available and timely shared with all parties,” the poll panel wrote.
VOTER NAME AND ADDRESS
However, Gandhi has gone on to state in his latest address that the party wants to ‘see the names of the voters, who voted in the Lok Sabha election in Maharashtra and we want to see the names and addresses of the voters who voted in the Vidhan Sabha elections’ and the poll panel has refused to share this data.
Sharing names and addresses of voters who voted, however, is a clearly tricky territory and it would run counter to Section 94 of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951 which explicitly states that ‘secrecy Of Voting‘ must not be infringed.
Several SC orders have also held that secret ballot is the cornerstone of free and fair elections, people in the know pointed out.
