New Delhi: Flagging alleged irregularities in the Maharashtra assembly polls, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday claimed that there weren’t isolated glitches but “vote theft” and demanded the immediate release of machine-readable digital voter rolls as well as CCTV footage.
The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha shared on X a media report which claimed that in just six months between the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the Maharashtra assembly polls, Nagpur South West — the seat held by BJP leader and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis — added 29,219 new voters.
“In Maharashtra CM’s constituency, the voter list grew by 8% in just 5 months. Some booths saw a 20-50% surge. BLOs reported unknown individuals casting votes,” Gandhi said in his post.
“Yet, no such checks appear to have been carried out, claimed polling staff in some of the areas that saw the highest rates of additions,” Newslaundry reported.
In the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP’s Nitin Gadkari defeated the Congress nominee Vikas Thakre, though the Congress managed to increase its vote share by 5.27 per cent, while BJP’s dipped by 1.59 per cent.
Five months later in the assembly polls, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had retained the seat by a margin of 39,000 votes.
“These aren’t isolated glitches. This is vote theft. The cover-up is the confession. That’s why we demand the immediate release of machine-readable digital voter rolls and CCTV footage,” wrote Rahul.
The Newslaundry report says across 378 booths in the Nagpur West assembly, there was a jump of over four per cent in the electorate, in 26 booths by more than 20 per cent and in four booths over 40 per cent.
Last week, Rahul had called the change in rules regarding the storage of video footage of voting as evidence of “match-fixing.”
“Voter-list? They won’t give in machine-readable format. CCTV footage? They changed the rules to hide them. Photos and videos of polling? Not a year, these will be destroyed in 45 days,” Rahul wrote on X. “Those who were supposed to answer are themselves wiping evidence. It is clear the match is fixed and a fixed election is poisonous for democracy.”
In a letter to the state chief electoral officers on May 30, the Election Commission had instructed the officials to destroy footage of CCTV, webcasting and all videos of the election process within 45 days, unless the same is challenged in a court of law, the same as the duration in which an election can be challenged legally.
