Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Friday raised concerns over the surge in new voters, particularly between the 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections in Maharashtra, highlighting that 39 lakh new voters were added in just five months after the Lok Sabha polls.
Addressing a press conference at the Constitution Club in Delhi alongside Maha Vikas Aghadi partners Sanjay Raut and Supriya Sule, Rahul Gandhi also questioned discrepancies in voter registration figures, claiming that the number of registered voters exceeded Maharashtra’s total adult population.
“We want to bring to the notice of the people of India some information that we have found regarding the Maharashtra elections. We have studied in detail the voter lists, the voting pattern and we have a team working on this for some time. There are many irregularities that we have found,” Gandhi said.
“In five years between Vidhan Sabha 2019 and Lok Sabha 2024 elections, 32 lakh voters were added to the electoral rolls in Maharashtra. However, in a period of five months between Lok Sabha 2024 and Vidhan Sabha 2024, 39 lakh new voters were added in Maharashtra. The question is why are more voters were added in five months after the Lok Sabha elections than are being added in five years prior. Who are these 39 lakh people?” Gandhi said.
He also questioned that why there were more registered voters in Maharashtra than the entire voting population of the state.
“According to the government, the adult population of Maharashtra is 9.54 crores. According to the Election Commission, there are more voters in Maharashtra than people in the state. Somehow, voters were suddenly added in Maharashtra,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi also highlighted that the number of voters who voted for these three parties (Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP-SCP) has not reduced within Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha.
“We got the same amount of votes. Congress vote in Lok Sabha 2024 in a constituency is 1.36 lakh votes and in Vidhan Sabha, we get 1.34 lakh,” he said.
However, he mentioned that 35,000 new voters are added in this constituency which helped the BJP in achieving the victory in the Assembly polls.
“BJP in Lok Sabha gets 1.9 lakh votes and then in Vidhan Sabha they get 1.75 lakh votes. Most of those voters who provided the BJP their victory come from those 35,000 new voters who have been added. It is the case in multiple constituencies,” the Lok Sabha LoP said.
Rahul Gandhi demanded the voter list of both Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls from the Election Commission.
“We have been saying to the election commission that we are finding anomalies. We need the voter list – names and addresses of the voters of Maharashtra. We need the voter list of the Lok Sabha election. We need the voter list of the Vidhan Sabha election. Because we want to understand exactly who these new additional voters are,” he said.
“There are many, many, many voters that have been deleted. Voters who are in one booth have been transferred to another booth. Most of these voters come from Dalit communities, tribal communities, and minority communities… We have made repeated requests to the election commission. They have not answered us. The leader of the opposition has said this in Parliament House. The election commission has not responded. Now, the only reason they would not respond is that there is something wrong with what they have done. I am not making any accusations. I am presenting data here clearly,” Gandhi added.
In a post on X, the Election Commision said, “ECI considers political parties,as priority stakeholders,of course the voters being the prime & deeply values views, suggestions, questions coming from political parties. Commission would respond in writing with full factual &procedural matrix uniformly adopted across the country.” (ANI)
