NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi's vote manipulation charge is "unfounded" as no appeals were filed against the electoral rolls in Haryana, Election Commission officials said on Wednesday.
The ECI officials were responding to Gandhi's allegations of large scale voter fraud in 2024 Haryana assembly polls.
The officials also dismissed claims of BJP retaining power through 'rigging and bulk voting', and questioned why Congress' booth agents did not flag voters who had cast vote multiple times in the Haryana assembly elections in October 2024.
“Why were no claims and objections raised by INC’s Booth Level Agents to prevent multiple entries,” ECI sources asked, while adding that the party also did not file any appeal at the revision stage.
The officials said that during the electoral roll revision, Congress BLAs did not file claims or objections regarding alleged duplicate, shifted or dead voters.
Booth-level agents or BLAs are appointed by political parties to flag irregularities, if any, in electoral rolls.
Further hitting out at Gandhi, EC officials underlined that "zero appeals" were filed against electoral rolls and only 22 election petitions were currently pending in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which is said to be a 'normal' amount of petitions in an election of this magnitude.
An election petition can be filed within 45 days of the announcement of results in the high court of that state.
A senior ECI official said, “Mr Gandhi has raised the issue of Rai (29 Assembly Constituency) and Hodal (83 Assembly Constituency) in Haryana. Since Election Petitions have been filed in both the ACs among 23 Election Petitions filed with regard to the assembly elections, Mr Gandhi may be advised to use all his evidence there.”
“Incidentally, Rahul Gandhi on the one hand opposes Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which purifies electoral rolls and on the other hand he keeps giving presentations to bring out impurities in the past electoral rolls. With this it is clear that he supports SIR despite opposing it in the beginning,” the official added.
Gandhi on Wednesday accused the ECI of “stealing votes” at the behest of the ruling BJP, claiming that 25 lakh votes were bogus in a state with roughly two crore voters - amounting to “one in every eight voters” or 12.5 percent fake entries.
The BJP won 48 seats in the 2024 Haryana assembly polls. The Congress, which was predicted to win by many exit polls, won 37 seats. The INLD had won two seats while independent candidates bagged three in the 90-member Assembly.
On the issue of zero house number, they said 'House Number Zero' is also for houses where Panchayat and Municipalities have not given house numbers.
