New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi, Leader of Opposition on Friday alleged discrepancies in recently concluded Maharashtra Assembly Elections. He was accompanied by his Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) partners Sanjay Raut and Supriya Sule when he the Congress leader raised concerns over the surge in new voters, particularly between the 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections in Maharashtra.
Gandhi said that 39 lakh new voters were added in just five months after the Lok Sabha polls. “In five years between Vidhan Sabha 2019 and Lok Sabha 2024 elections, 32 lakh voters were added to the electoral rolls in Maharashtra. However, in a period of five months between Lok Sabha 2024 and Vidhan Sabha 2024, 39 lakh new voters were added in Maharashtra. The question is why more voters were added in five months after the Lok Sabha elections than are being added in five years prior. Who are these 39 lakh people?” Gandhi questioned in a press conference at the Constitution Club in Delhi.
Rahul further asked why the number of registered voters in Maharashtra is more than the entire population of the state.
“According to the government, the adult population of Maharashtra is 9.54 crores. According to the Election Commission, there are more voters in Maharashtra than people in the state. Somehow, voters were suddenly added in Maharashtra,” he said.
Rahul Slams BJP Over Voter List Discrepancies
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has accused the BJP of benefiting from voter list discrepancies in Maharashtra. He claimed that new voter additions played a key role in the Assembly election results, demanding answers from the Election Commission (EC).
Gandhi pointed out that the vote share of Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), and NCP (SCP) remained consistent in both Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. “We got the same amount of votes. Congress vote in Lok Sabha 2024 in a constituency is 1.36 lakh votes and in Vidhan Sabha, we get 1.34 lakh,” he said.
He alleged that the BJP gained an advantage due to the addition of 35,000 new voters in the same constituency. “BJP in Lok Sabha gets 1.9 lakh votes and then in Vidhan Sabha they get 1.75 lakh votes. Most of those voters who provided the BJP their victory come from those 35,000 new voters who have been added. It is the case in multiple constituencies,” he added.
Gandhi demanded the voter lists for both elections from the EC. “We have been saying to the Election Commission that we are finding anomalies. We need the voter list—names and addresses of the voters of Maharashtra. We need the voter list of the Lok Sabha election. We need the voter list of the Vidhan Sabha election. Because we want to understand exactly who these new additional voters are,” he said.
He also alleged that many voters were deleted or transferred to different booths. “Most of these voters come from Dalit communities, tribal communities, and minority communities… We have made repeated requests to the election commission. They have not answered us,” he stated. He further said that the EC’s silence suggested something was wrong. “I am not making any accusations. I am presenting data here clearly,” he added.
In response, the Election Commission defended its position. In a post on X, it said, “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.”
The Congress has been raising concerns about electoral transparency, but the EC is yet to provide a detailed response.
(With ANI inputs)