New Delhi | Hitting back at Rahul Gandhi for his 'vote theft' charges against the Election Commission, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday served a seven-day ultimatum on the Congress leader to submit a signed affidavit to back his claims, else his allegations will be considered baseless and invalid.
In his first press conference after Gandhi levelled allegations of 'vote chori' in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and several opposition leaders flagged issues about revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, a combative Kumar asked Gandhi to either apologise or back his claims with a signed affidavit as required under electoral rules.
"Give an affidavit or apologise to the nation. There is no third option. If an affidavit is not given within seven days, this means that all allegations are baseless," said Kumar, flanked by Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.
The remarks by the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) came on a day when Gandhi-led opposition launched the ‘Vote Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar and stepped up attack against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the poll-bound state.
Kumar said the SIR exercise was aimed at removing all shortcomings in the voter list and it is a matter of grave concern that some parties are spreading misinformation about it, "firing from the Election Commission's shoulder".
"If one thinks that by making a PPT presentation with wrong facts, the ECI will act, that is not the case. EC cannot act without the affidavit in such a serious matter as it would be against the law and the Constitution," Kumar said.
Levelling allegations of "vote chori", Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had on July 31, through a presentation at a press conference, cited data from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to claim that over 1 lakh votes were "stolen" in Mahadevapura assembly segment in Karnataka through five types of manipulation, including duplicate voters, fake and invalid addresses and single-address voters.
The chief electoral officers of several states had asked Gandhi to file an affidavit under oath on his claims, but he had refused to do so.
The CEC on Sunday admitted that there could be discrepancies in the electoral rolls and asserted that SIR was the only way to correct this. He, however, contended that a person being present in multiple voter lists does not automatically mean that he or she also voted multiple times.
Kumar also said the poll panel has already identified and corrected more than three lakh cases of multiple people having the same voter identity card numbers, but the duplicate voter issue of one person being listed as a voter at multiple places can be resolved only through exercises like SIR.
"At the ground level, all the voters, district presidents of political parties, BLOs are working transparently, validating and giving video testimonials. It is a worrying matter that these efforts are not reaching their national and state level leaders, or they are ignoring it to create confusion. The truth is, all the stakeholders are walking in tandem to make the SIR successful; they are working hard," Kumar said.
The CEC also urged all political parties to point out the mistakes in the Bihar draft electoral rolls before September 1.
Kumar said the EC cannot discriminate among political parties, and both ruling and opposition parties are equal before the poll authority.
He said the list of names deleted from Bihar's draft electoral rolls following special intensive revision has been posted on the websites of district magistrates within 56 hours of the Supreme Court's orders.
The apex court, while hearing a bunch of petitions challenging SIR, had last week asked the Election Commission to publish details of 65 lakh deleted names from the voters list with reasons of non-inclusion to enhance transparency in the process.
Soon after Kumar's 85-minute press conference ended, Congress said the CEC answered none of the questions raised by Gandhi meaningfully and called his assertion of the Election Commission making no distinction between opposition and ruling party as "laughable". Several opposition leaders described the press conference as a "monologue" by the CEC.
With the opposition questioning the timing of the electoral roll revision in Bihar, Kumar said that it is a myth that SIR has been carried out in haste and emphasised that it is the EC's legal duty to correct the voter list before every election.
"Doors of the Election Commission are open to everyone, and booth-level officers and agents are working together in a transparent manner to carry out the SIR exercise," he said.
The CEC asserted that neither the EC nor the voters are scared of "baseless allegations" of double voting and "vote chori".
"The Election Commission will remain steadfast like a rock with voters of all classes without bothering about politics being played by some," Kumar said.
Kumar also recalled that the Supreme Court, in a 2019 judgement, had prohibited sharing machine-readable voter lists as such an act would violate the privacy of voters.
"We have to understand the difference between a machine-readable voter list and a searchable voter list. You can search the voter list available on the Election Commission 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. This decision of the Election Commission is after the judgment of the Supreme Court and is from 2019," Kumar said on the opposition demand.
The Congress and other opposition parties have been pressing the EC to provide machine-readable digital copy of Maharashtra voter lists, alleging irregularities in the 2024 state polls.
New Delhi | In his press conference since becoming the chief election commissioner six months ago, Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday sought to demolish 'vote theft' allegations levelled by Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders, citing provisions of the Constitution and clauses of electoral laws.
Kumar peppered his 85-minute press conference with several quotable quotes, some of which are:
* EC is standing like a rock with voters
* A lie, if repeated time and again, does not become truth.
* How can EC discriminate between political parties
* EC does not distinguish between the opposition and the ruling party.
* Political parties firing from EC's shoulders.
* No matter which political party someone belongs to, the Election Commission will not shy away from its constitutional duty.
* Sun rises from the east.
* Either give a signed declaration in seven days, or all allegations will be considered as baseless and invalid.
New Delhi | Citing a 2019 Supreme Court judgment, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday said that the voter list in machine-readable format cannot be shared with political parties.
He also said there was a difference between machine-readable and searchable formats.
Addressing a press conference here, Kumar said that the voter list available on its website can be searched using a voter card number and can also be downloaded.
He said the machine-readable format is barred as it can be edited and can lead to its misuse.
The Congress has been demanding the voter list in machine-readable format, saying it will help it flag flaws.
The CEC said that in 2019, the top court had sided with its stand that a machine-readable format cannot be shared as it could compromise voters' privacy.
Officials pointed out that the issue was already raised by the Congress before the Supreme Court in a writ petition in 2018 filed by Kamal Nath, the then president of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee.
Referring to the Supreme Court verdict in Kamal Nath vs Election Commission of India, (2019), the officials said that the top court had observed that it found force in the submission of EC.
Clause 11.2.2.2 of the Election Manual uses the expression "text mode". The draft electoral roll in text mode has been supplied to the petitioner, the apex court had said.
"The clause nowhere says that the draft electoral roll has to be put up on the Chief Electoral Officer's website in a 'searchable PDF'.
"Therefore, the petitioner cannot claim, as a right, that the draft electoral roll should be placed on the website in a 'searchable mode'. It has only to be in 'text mode' and it is so provided," the apex court had observed.
