Responding to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s ‘H-Files’ press conference over the alleged vote theft in Haryana assembly elections, the Election Commission on Wednesday flagged that no appeals were filed against the electoral rolls and that only 22 election petitions were pending before the High Court.
According to the sources cited by ANI, the poll panel has asked why the Congress polling agents did not identify duplicate voters at polling booths.
The commission also sought to know whether Gandhi supports the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise that aims to overhaul the electoral rolls by removing duplicate and bogus voters.
Meanwhile, the Chief Electoral Officer of Haryana said it will issue a detailed response to Gandhi’s claims. He said the draft electoral rolls of the state were shared with all political parties on August 2 last year.
The final electoral rolls were published and shared with the political parties on August 27 last. The electoral rolls were finalised as on the last date of withdrawal and shared with the contesting candidates on 16.09.2024, the CEO added.
What did Rahul Gandhi reveal in his latest presser on ‘vote chori’?
Addressing a press conference in Delhi, the Gandhi scion claimed that approximately 25 lakh votes were stolen in Haryana alone. “The exit polls showed the Congress winning, but the final results tell a different story,” he said, alleging that the issue was not confined to any one region.
“In postal ballots, the Congress was leading, but the official outcomes do not reflect that. I bring you this with 101 per cent truth,” he added.
The LoP showed several details about the electoral rolls, including a woman’s photograph allegedly appearing on 22 different voter ID cards and a single individual registered with 500 voters at one address.
“This is a centralised operation,” he alleged, asserting what he termed the “Brazil model” of vote manipulation.
According to him, one in every eight voter IDs in Haryana is fake, with over 1.24 lakh voters carrying counterfeit photos. Moreover, he alleged instances where names and ages vary for the same individual across different lists, exacerbating concerns about roll integrity.
He also slammed the EC for refusing to deploy its software designed to identify duplicate voters. “We asked the ECI to run the software and detect voters with the same name and address, but they refused. The reason is clear—they are aiding the BJP,” Gandhi charged.
He accused the commission of ignoring fake voters, leading to scenarios where thousands of BJP workers allegedly voted multiple times across states.