The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday dismissed allegations made by Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, who accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of shielding “vote theft”. The poll body said Gandhi’s claims were “incorrect and baseless” and clarified that no online deletion of votes is possible by the public.

In a statement, the Commission said: “Allegations made by Rahul Gandhi are incorrect and baseless. No deletion of any vote can be done online by any member of the public, as misconceived by Gandhi. No deletion can take place without giving an opportunity to be heard to the affected person.”

The poll body added that in 2023, some unsuccessful attempts were made to delete voters in Karnataka’s Aland Assembly Constituency, and an FIR was filed by the ECI itself. The statement also noted that Aland was won by Subhadh Guttedar (BJP) in 2018 and by BR Patil (INC) in 2023.

Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi held a press conference where he launched a sharp attack on the Chief Election Commissioner. He alleged that Gyanesh Kumar was “protecting people who are destroying Indian democracy.”

Gandhi claimed that a “systematic conspiracy” was underway to delete votes belonging largely to Dalits, OBCs, Adivasis, and minorities. He alleged that in Aland constituency, nearly 6,018 votes were fraudulently deleted using impersonation and software manipulation.

“In election after election, voters for the Opposition are being selectively targeted for deletions. We now have 100 per cent proof of this,” he said.

The Congress leader further accused the Election Commission of not cooperating with probes. He said Karnataka CID had sent 18 letters in 18 months seeking details like IP addresses, OTP trails, and device ports linked to deletion requests, but received no response.

According to Gandhi, deletions were carried out by using software that impersonated voters and filed applications with mobile numbers from outside Karnataka. He claimed that the program would automatically select the first name in the booth list for fraudulent deletions.

The clash between the Congress and the Election Commission has once again brought voter list deletions into focus, especially in states where elections have been hotly contested.

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