New Delhi/Mumbai: Raising serious alarm over the integrity of India’s electoral process, Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Tuesday launched a blistering attack on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Election Commission of India (ECI), accusing them of systematic voter list manipulation to subvert democracy.
Pointing to the latest Special Intensive Revision (SIR) draft data in Maharashtra, LoP Gandhi highlighted that a staggering 2.07 crore voters—accounting for nearly one in every five registered voters in the state—have been excluded from the draft rolls.
Citing severe discrepancies in Maharashtra’s official electoral statistics over successive revisions, LoP Gandhi questioned the transparency and accuracy of the official data, asking, “Which list was correct?”
In a detailed statement shared on social media platform X, the Congress leader laid out a stark breakdown of the fluctuating voter numbers in the state: 2024 Lok Sabha Elections: 9.29 crore voters, 2024 Assembly Elections: 9.70 crore voters and 2026 Special Intensive Revision (SIR): 7.78 crore voters.
LoP Gandhi alleged that the tactics of the ruling party and what he termed the “Vote Theft Commission” continue to evolve with a single objective: Securing a BJP victory at any cost and undermining Indian democracy.
“For a government formed through vote theft, the public does not matter — which is why this BJP neither listens to the people nor respects their mandate,” LoP Gandhi stated, adding that a government born out of voter manipulation remains entirely unaccountable to citizens.
Drawing attention to a broader pattern across multiple states, the Congress leader recalled the rapid addition of 39 lakh voters in Maharashtra in the brief interval between the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, reiterating, “I said back then, and I say it again today: This was vote theft.”
He further cited the 2026 SIR exercise in West Bengal, where 91 per cent of deleted names—or 9 out of every 10 deletions—had to be reinstated following official appeals, but only after the elections had already concluded and a regime change had taken place.
Echoing the Leader of Opposition’s concerns, the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) has urged the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to immediately publish and share a booth-wise list of voters marked for notices under the ongoing SIR drive.
The MPCC noted that the draft electoral roll includes “suspicious” (anomalous) and unmapped voters without any clear distinguishing markers, creating widespread panic and confusion. With millions expected to be summoned for hearings, the party expressed grave concerns that Block Level Officers (BLOs) might repeat past patterns that previously rendered 1.52 crore voters unlocated or classified as permanently migrated in Maharashtra, potentially triggering mass wrongful disenfranchisement.
Highlighting administrative lapses on the ground, Advocate Sandesh Kondvilkar, General Secretary of the MPCC, confirmed that BLOs have not yet received clear instructions on constituency-wise notice and hearing procedures.
Kondvilkar has submitted a formal demand to the CEO seeking the immediate release of the list of voters slated to receive notices to protect citizens’ voting rights.
(IANS)
