Former chief election commissioner O.P. Rawat believes the poll panel should probe Rahul Gandhi's allegations about bogus voters in Bengaluru without waiting for him to formally lodge a complaint.
Asked about the controversy, he told The Telegraph: “When I was there, our policy was that if any senior functionary of a party raised an allegation, we would suo motu investigate it and present the facts to the common man so that the faith in the system is upheld. We did not ask them (the parties) to complain to us first.”
Rahul had on Thursday alleged that the Mahadevapura Assembly segment of Bengaluru Central parliamentary seat had more than 1 lakh bogus voters during last year’s Lok Sabha polls. At least one such voter was registered at two booths and had voted in both, he said.
The Congress leader showed slides of portions of the rolls as purported proof of the same voter being registered multiple times, invalid addresses, 80 people being registered from a single-room tenement, and Mahadevapura voters being registered in other states too.
The Congress held protests on the issue in Bengaluru on Friday.
The Internet too was abuzz with claims and counter-claims about these allegedly fake voters.
Some people complained of being unable to access links to download electoral rolls for a brief period on Friday morning, prompting allegations that the Election Commission (EC) might be tinkering with the rolls following Rahul’s claims. Poll panel sources denied this.
Commission sources also informally shared with journalists a photograph of members of a particular family holding their electors' photo identity cards. This family had been included in Rahul’s list of fake voters because its members' photos were not visible on the copy of the electoral rolls given to his party.
In a post on X, the commission repeated its challenge to Rahul to either file a complaint for each bogus voter --- under oath and under the Registration of Electors Rules – or "Apologise to the Nation".
The Karnataka chief electoral officer too asked the Congress to submit documents to support its memorandum on the controversy, submitted on Friday.
Some former bureaucrats, however, appeared to agree with Rawat about the need to probe Rahul’s charges without insisting on formalities such as complaints and oaths.
In a post on X, a former Himachal Pradesh-cadre IAS officer, Sanjeev Gupta, said: “My appeal to Mr @RahulGandhi and the team that worked with him apparently for 6 months! Please release the data of 100250 'stolen votes' in digital format in the public domain.”
Tagging the commission, Gupta added: “@ECISVEEP can simply run a query on your data of 100250 votes & full electoral rolls based on EPIC, name, age, relation name, age etc. Truth will be out within minutes.
“Moreover, there will then be no need of affidavit or oath under Rule 20(3)(b) of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1960. A sworn affidavit was otherwise also a discretion of the Registration Officer.”
Former central information commissioner Yashovardhan Azad posted on X: “One expected the ruling party members to express concern and join Rahul in asking the EC -- what's happening. But see the replies -- 1. EC is constitutional body 2. who knows who the fraud voters voted for 3. why have they chosen this MP constituency 4. Another fraud facts 5. Go to Supreme Court. EC says give it on oath. Shocking!”
The commission gave its side of the debate in a post on X.
It “Fact Checked” the Congress protests in Bengaluru and wrote: “Many such allegations are being made by Shri Rahul Gandhi and are being reported by the media, despite no written complaint ever being submitted by him.
“In the past as well, he has never personally sent a self-signed letter. For example, he raised the Maharashtra issue in December 2024. Subsequently, an advocate from AICC wrote to ECI. Our reply, dated 24 December 2024, is publicly available on ECI website. Yet, Shri Rahul Gandhi claims that ECI never responded.”
Rahul found support from allies such as Shiv Sena (UBT) Maharashtra legislature party leader Aaditya Thackeray, CPI parliamentarian P. Sandosh Kumar, Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal and CPIML Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya.
“The EC must now provide the full electoral rolls in machine readable formats. By not providing booth-level lists of deletion on specified grounds in the ongoing Bihar SIR the EC is making room for the perpetration of a similar fraud in Bihar,” Bhattacharya said.
Sibal, reacting to the commission’s demand for a formal complaint from Rahul, described the poll panel as “an agent of the government in power” and Rahul as a “true patriot”.
Rahul has sought electoral rolls in machine readable format, and CCTV footage from the booths.
India is the only large multi-party democracy to offer unrestricted public access to electoral rolls. However, it restricts this to hard copies and PDF files, and releases CCTV footage of polling booths only in response to an election petition — that is, a high court case challenging the outcome of an election.
Candidates have to file such petitions within 45 days of the results being declared.