.webp)
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday strongly denied allegations made by Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, accusing the poll body of shielding those involved in alleged voter deletion scams. The ECI described Gandhi’s claims as “incorrect and baseless”, asserting that no votes can be deleted arbitrarily or online by members of the public.
“Allegations made by Shri Rahul Gandhi are incorrect and baseless. No deletion of any vote can be done online by any member of the public, as misconceived by Shri Rahul Gandhi,” the Commission stated.
The ECI reiterated that no voter can be removed from the rolls without following due process, which includes giving the affected person an opportunity to be heard. “No deletion can take place without giving an opportunity of being heard to the affected person,” the poll body clarified.
The Commission acknowledged that there were unsuccessful attempts in 2023 to delete voter entries in the Aland constituency in Karnataka. However, it emphasized that these attempts were detected and blocked, and a First Information Report (FIR) was filed by the ECI itself to investigate the matter. “In 2023, certain unsuccessful attempts were made for the deletion of electors in the Aland Assembly Constituency, and an FIR was filed by the authority of ECI itself to investigate the matter,” it said.
The poll body also pointed to the election results in Aland as a sign of electoral fairness, noting that while the BJP’s Subhadh Guttedar won in 2018, the Congress’s BR Patil won the seat in 2023.
Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi held a press conference in which he alleged that a “systematic conspiracy” is underway to fraudulently delete voters, primarily from communities that support the Opposition, including Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs, and minorities. Gandhi directly targeted Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, accusing him of "protecting people who are destroying Indian democracy" and called the alleged voter deletion campaign an act of “vote chori” (vote theft).
The Congress leader claimed that automated software was being used to impersonate voters and file deletion forms across constituencies. Citing Karnataka’s Aland Assembly constituency as a case in point, he said, “In Aland, nearly 6,018 votes were fraudulently deleted using impersonation and software-based manipulation. This is happening across the country.”
Rahul Gandhi further alleged that the Karnataka CID had written 18 times over the past 18 months to the Election Commission, requesting technical data such as IP addresses, device ports, and OTP trails related to deletion applications, but received no cooperation. “The Commission has not shared this information because it would reveal where the operation is being carried out. EC knows who is doing this. They are defending the murderers of democracy,” he charged.
He added that Congress would soon detonate a “hydrogen bomb” of evidence to prove an alleged nationwide voter deletion racket.
The senior Congress leader also raised concerns about similar deletion attempts in Maharashtra’s Rajura constituency, suggesting that the practice is not limited to Karnataka. He claimed the use of mobile numbers from outside the states and software automation to impersonate voters and submit deletion forms. According to Gandhi, a program was allegedly designed to pick the first name from a booth list and submit deletion requests en masse; a method he claims is being used to selectively target Opposition voters.
