The Election Commission of India (ECI) has strongly countered Rahul Gandhi’s ongoing claims of irregularities in the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections, pointing out that the Congress leader has failed to respond to an official invitation extended nearly two months ago.
As per a June 12, 2025, letter, the Commission had written to Gandhi, requesting him to visit for a thorough discussion on issues raised by him in a newspaper article.
The ECI informed that most of the points brought out by the Congress had already been clarified in a detailed response on December 24, 2024 — a document which is still in the public domain on the website of the Commission.
Even so, Gandhi upped the ante on Saturday, accusing the Commission of having lost its impartiality and controversially terming it "dead."
In response to these comments, ECI sources brushed aside the charges as "completely baseless," claiming that there were no irregularities in the election process. They pointed out that Gandhi had not yet accepted or responded to the June invitation. A top official said, "The Commission works in a completely transparent manner. All its actions are transparent and controlled strictly by law."
Officials also cautioned that such baseless allegations jeopardize public trust in an institution that is required by the Constitution to be free from external influence.
Only days ago, the Commission reaffirmed the purity of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), after a rigorous Check and Verification (C&V) process undertaken in Maharashtra. The audit was done following a demand by 10 contestants of the 2024 state polls for verification.
The verification included an examination of 48 Ballot Units (BUs), 31 Control Units (CUs), and 31 Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs). ECI assured that all the machines were in working condition and no discrepancies existed in machine results and VVPAT slips.
These events come at a time when tensions between the Congress party and the Election Commission are on the rise, with Gandhi repeatedly blaming the ECI for functioning under pressure from outside.
The Commission's recent utterances are being read as a straight and strong response to those attacks, reaffirming its position on transparency and procedural exactness.
Read also| Watch| Arun Jaitley Threatened Me,’ Claims Rahul Gandhi; His Son Responds
Read also| Poll Commission Responds to Tejashwi Yadav’s Claim About Missing Names
