Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi alleged irregularities in the electoral roll prepared for Maharashtra Assembly polls and said about 39 lakh voters were additionally added to the list within months after the Lok Sabha election. Gandhi charged the Election Commission has not been responding to their request for the voters' list of both the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections.
We represent the entire Opposition that contested the last election in Maharashtra. We wish to bring to the notice of the people of India some crucial information we've uncovered regarding the Maharashtra elections.
— Congress (@INCIndia) February 7, 2025
Our team has meticulously studied the voters' list and voting… pic.twitter.com/sRT6ObK9Pu
Addressing presspersons in Delhi along with Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) leader Supriya Sule, Gandhi alleged, “What we've found regarding the Maharashtra elections raises several questions for the Election Commission. Between the 2019 Vidhan Sabha elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, 32 lakh voters were added to Maharashtra's electoral rolls over five years. However, between the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the 2024 Vidhan Sabha elections, 39 lakh new voters were added in just five months. Why were more voters added after the Lok Sabha elections?”
Gandhi said new voters equivalent to the population of Himachal Pradesh were added within a period of five months in Maharashtra. He also charged the total number of persons in the electoral roll was higher than the adult population in the state. “According to the government, Maharashtra's adult population is 9.54 crore. Yet, the Election Commission reports more voters in Maharashtra than its adult population. This discrepancy raises questions about how these voters were created,” he charged.
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Gandhi claimed there wasn’t any decrease in the votes gained by the opposition in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. The opposition leader said he suspects number of voters deleted from the list was higher than new voters added. He claimed the Election Commission will not respond to their charges as “there is something wrong with what they have done.”
However, in a post on X, the Commission said they will respond to the allegations factually. “ECI considers political parties, as priority stakeholders, of course the voters being the prime & deeply values views, suggestions, questions coming from political parties. Commission would respond in writing with full factual &procedural matrix uniformly adopted across the country,” it tweeted.
