The Election Commission had provided comprehensive data to the police about the Aland voter-deletion case two years back, including the name of the objector, EPIC number, mobile number for login, Form 7 reference number, contact number given for processing, IP address, location of the applicant, and dates of form submission and user creation.
"Basically, the information Rahul has now asked EC to share was already given by Karnataka CEO to state CID two years earlier," an EC officer added, comparing this with Rahul's unwillingness to file a signed affidavit substantiating allegations of voter-roll improprieties in Mahadevapura, for which CEC Gyanesh Kumar had made a similar deadline.
In the case of Rahul's charge of bogus voters in Maharashtra's Rajoura assembly constituency, the electoral registration officer (ERO) said that from October 1 to October 17, 2024, the constituency had 7,592 applications for fresh enrollment. "On scrutiny by booth-level officers, 6,861 applications were found invalid due to fictitious identities, faulty photos, documents or addresses, and were rejected," the ERO added. He further added that no spurious names were inserted in the rolls and that a thorough probe and criminal proceeding under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the IT Act, 2000, were ordered after the irregularities surfaced.
Shortly after Rahul's PowerPoint presentation, the EC relegated his allegations against Aland as "incorrect and baseless," reaffirming no voter's name to be removed online by the public "as misconceived by Rahul Gandhi." It explained that any concerned elector is provided an opportunity to be heard prior to the electoral registration officer ruling on deletion.
"In 2023, certain unsuccessful attempts were made for deletion of electors in Aland AC and an FIR was filed by the poll panel itself to probe the matter," an EC spokesperson added, adding that BJP's Subash Guttedar had won the Aland seat in 2018 and Congress's B R Patil in 2023.
The Karnataka CEO revealed that 6,018 Form 7 requests for deletions were made online in December 2022 on the National Voters' Service Portal, the Voter Helpline App, and the Garuda App. Due to the unusually large number, every application was processed; 24 were found to be legitimate and 5,994 were rejected to avoid wrongful deletions. In light of these revelations, an FIR was filed on February 21, 2023. The CEO further stated that all information had been submitted to the Kalaburagi SP.
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