ECI Rejects Rahul Gandhi’s Claims of Vote Deletion in Karnataka
New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has responded to Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s allegations that thousands of votes were purposefully removed from the aland constituency electoral rolls, calling the claims “baseless” and “factually incorrect,” stating that, “the commission is not aware of any malpractice.
Rahul have alleged that over 6,000 names, mainly belonging to Congress supporters and certain communities had been deleted from the rolls electronically. Refuting this, the Commission argued, “No vote can be deleted online by any member of the public, as incorrectly alleged. Each vote deleted, is followed with due process allowing the elector concerned to be heard.”
The Commission explained that the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) of Aland received a flood of 6,018 online applications in late 2022 (Form 7) requesting deletions online through official apps such as NVSP, VHA, and GARUDA. Upon proper examination 5,994 applications were bogus and 24 verified to be legitimate and were processed.
Karnataka’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) verified in a comprehensive statement that all of the false requests were not acted upon in a sense that proved successful in terms of requesting voter deletions. The Electroal Registration Officer in Aland, instead, filed an FIR in February 2023 with Aland police, alleging suspicious efforts to tamper with the process. After that point, the case was assigned to the Superintendent of Police, Kalaburagi, for investigation.
In surrounding the political outcome, the commission similarly captured in the recording that the BJP’s Subhadh Guttedar won Aland in 2018, but Congress candidate B.R. Patil was awarded the seat in the 2023 Assembly election.
The Commission also noted in light of the political discourse that with the renewed attention from Rahul Gandhi, the electoral commission reiterated their statement that their system has controls to prevent unauthorized deletion, along with reiterating, “Attempts to mislead voters with unverified allegations compromise public confidence and the integrity of the electoral process.”
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