The Election Commission held a rare news conference on Sunday, coinciding with the start of the INDIA bloc’s Vote Adhikar Yatra in Bihar.

Rare, because election commissioners have in recent memory held news conferences only to announce elections. While previous chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar used poetry in his briefings to respond to critics, parts of CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s opening remarks on Sunday sounded like excerpts from a Bollywood script.

CCTV footage

Defending the Election Commission’s (EC) decision not to publicly release CCTV footage of polling stations, he said: “We saw a few days ago that the photos of many voters were, without their permission, presented before the media…. Should the Election Commission share the CCTV videos of mothers, daughters-in-law, daughters, or that of any other voter?”

CCTV footage is currently made available to unsuccessful poll candidates who demand it in election petitions filed in high courts within 45 days of the results, after which the footage is deleted.

The Congress has demanded general access to CCTV footage, citing the instance of a woman in Bengaluru who allegedly voted twice in the same election, at two different booths where she was registered.

Poll authorities and the woman have denied the charge.

Rahul’s charges

Gyanesh Kumar reiterated his demand to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to make his accusations — for instance, about a single Assembly segment in Bengaluru featuring over 1 lakh “bogus voters” during the last general election — under oath.

On why the poll panel has not probed the allegations, he replied that the CEOs (chief electoral officers of the states) do take cognisance of public statements and act on them.

“But if accusations are against 1.5 lakh people, then should all these voters be given notices without any evidence or affidavit?” he said.

“...Today, the media is reporting that many of those who were named (as fake voters in Rahul’s news conference) have turned up (to say they are genuine). If the EC had issued notices to them, would our stature fall or rise?” he added.

“To tell everyone, and the media, that if your name has been repeated on the electoral roll, then you must have voted twice and committed a crime…. And should the EC keep quiet? Not possible! You have to give an affidavit or apologise to the nation. There is no third option. If the affidavit is not given within seven days, then it means the allegations are baseless.”

Multiple entries

Kumar explained that the same voter being registered multiple times could happen if the voter shifted residence (and got registered at the new place) without the registration at the previous place of residence being deleted.

“Until 2003, there was no unified website and each state had their own separate site…. We have the technology but deletion done solely by technology will be wrong,” the CEC said, stressing the need for due process in deletions.

Anurag leeway

Kumar was asked why Rahul was issued a notice to submit his complaints on oath against each disputed entry on the electoral rolls, but BJP parliamentarian Anurag Thakur, who made similar allegations about constituencies of Opposition leaders in multiple states, was spared.

“One thing is to make a complaint, another is to spread confusion, and yet another is to level accusations on the EC,” the CEC said.

The CEC added: “Under graded response, if you are not an elector in that constituency, then your only recourse is the Registration of Electors Rules 20(3)(b)....”

It was under this rule that Rahul was asked to file his objections on oath.

Fake addresses

On Rahul’s claims about voters with fake addresses, Kumar said that people from unauthorised settlements, homeless people and those from settlements where door numbering does not exist are given notional numbers to fill in the field for door number on the computerised registration form.

Voter jump

On the older allegation of anomalously high voter registrations in Maharashtra before last year’s Assembly polls, the CEC stuck to the poll panel’s previously expressed stand that the parties had not objected to the electoral rolls when they received them, nor had the losing candidates moved court.

Machine-readability

On Rahul’s demand for machine-readable voter lists, Kumar said: “You can search the voter list available on the EC website by entering the EPIC number. You can also download it. This is not called machine-readable.

“Regarding machine-readable, in 2019, the Supreme Court also studied this subject in depth and found that giving a machine-readable electoral roll can violate the privacy of the voter.… The machine-readable voter list is prohibited.”

Evasive replies

Kumar gave evasive answers to some key questions from reporters. These included:

• How many undocumented immigrants were discovered on the existing voter list in Bihar?
• How many voters in Bihar submitted their enumeration forms with full documentation for the special intensive revision (SIR) of the rolls?
• How many voters were marked “not recommended” by booth-level officers?

Undocumented immigrants, he said, were subjected to the scrutiny of the enumeration forms received from them, and any such voter found on the draft list would be excluded from the final list.

On the other two questions, he replied that the process was a decentralised one, and “these are under consideration at the SDM (sub-divisional magistrate) level, and the decision will come by September 30”.

Unanswered

With the questions often asked in a bunch, one of the unanswered queries was:

• Why did the EC not consult political parties before undertaking the SIR?

Congress communications head Jairam Ramesh posted on X: “Notably, the CEC answered none of the pointed questions raised by Shri. Rahul Gandhi meaningfully. All that matters now is simply this: will the ECI implement, in letter and spirit, the Supreme Court’s orders of August 14th, 2025 on the Bihar SIR process? It is constitutionally bound to do so….”

The Supreme Court has asked the poll panel to publish district-wise lists of all the names removed from the Bihar draft rolls with the reason for each deletion.

“As far as the CEC’s threats to Rahul Gandhi are concerned, all that needs to be said is that the LoP in the Lok Sabha had simply stated facts revealed by the ECI’s own data,” Ramesh emphasised.

He said the poll panel “stands thoroughly exposed not only for its incompetence but also for its blatant partisanship”.