‘EC complicit in voter list manipulation’

New Delhi: The Congress on Monday accused the Election Commission of being “complicit” in voter list “manipulation” and asserted that the party was actively working to seek a remedy through legal, political and legislative means.

A group of senior Congress leaders questioned the Election Commission’s (EC) silence on multiple voters having the same identification

number and said the party would not let this issue fade due to the grave danger it posed to the country’s electoral democracy.

“This is a grave danger to the very idea of India as an electoral democracy. This transcends political parties and politics. Babasaheb Ambedkar fought for the setting up of an independent Election Commission to precisely resist this urge of executive interference in elections. The Congress will not let this issue fade away and is actively working on seeking remedy through legal, political, legislative and any other means,” the Congress’ Empowered Action Group of Leaders and Experts (EAGLE) said in a statement.

The group includes Ajay Maken, Digvijaya Singh, Abhishek Singhvi, Paveen Chakravarty, Pawan Khera, Gurdeep Singh Sappal, Nitin Raut and Vamshi Chand Reddy.

Alleging that the EC was “complicit” in voter list “manipulation”, the group claimed some startling developments on the issue had surfaced.

“The same voter ID number is being used for several voters, both from the same constituency in the same state as well as from other states. This is utterly shocking. A unique voter ID for every Indian voter is the fundamental requirement and premise of a clean voter list. Multiple voters having the same voter ID number is as bizarre as multiple vehicles bearing the same registration number. It is unheard of in any electoral democracy,” the group claimed.

In December, they said the Congress had pointed out “huge irregularities and abnormalities” in voter lists for the Assembly election in Maharashtra.

“It is both a logical and statistical absurdity that the Election Commission registered more new net voters (40 lakh) in five months between the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha elections than it did in the entire five-year period between 2019 and 2024 (32 lakh),” they had said.