Rahul Gandhi, the Congress MP and leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, has come under fire for allegedly “reiterating” claims of irregularities in India’s electoral rolls. According to sources close to the Election Commission of India, these accusations are a reiteration of previously rejected claims and a disregard for established legal procedures.
Gandhi claimed during a recent press conference that the electoral process is compromised by duplicate entries and entries in the voter list. ECI, however, has rejected these claims as a repetition of similar claims made by Kamal Nath, the president of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) at the time, in 2018. The Supreme Court at the time rejected those claims.
Sources claim that the issues of machine-readable election documents and the validity of ECI’s voter databases were resolved by the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in the Kamal Nath case.
Officials stated that Rahul Gandhi’s continued bringing up the same concerns today either betrays a lack of legal knowledge or a conscious effort to erode public confidence.
Based on information from a private website, Kamal Nath petitioned the Supreme Court in 2018 to declare that Madhya Pradesh’s electoral records contained up to 36 entries of the same faces. However, the Election Commission of India (ECI) proved that the alleged inconsistencies had already been fixed months before the appeal was filed, therefore the court rejected the claim as having no validity. The court denied the requested relief, which included the request for searchable electoral rolls in PDF format.
Notably, the Congress party’s allegations were further undermined by the fact that they had received the updated voter list well in advance. According to sources, this incident clearly established a standard for handling these complaints.
Rahul Gandhi claimed in his recent comments that there are still similar disparities, such as several listings with the same name in various states. He gave the example of Aditya Srivastava, a voter who was purportedly included on three separate state rolls. ECI sources asserted, however, that the updated rolls had been properly released and that this problem had been fixed months prior.
Considering that the regular methods for objection and rectification of electoral records are well-known and easily available, sources have noted that these recent assertions appear to be intended more to create political noise than to raise serious legal issues.
According to sources, Rahul’s frequent attacks on the ECI without offering fresh proof or according to the legal procedure show a lack of respect for the judiciary.
Sources remarked, “This is about political posturing in defiance of established legal positions, not electoral reform.”
The statute offers a clear process for contesting entries on the electoral roster and for appealing rulings. According to ECI sources, Gandhi has decided to sensationalize the issue through the media rather than through conventional avenues.
Election commission officials emphasized that evading due process not only compromises the ECI but also the rule of law, citing the well-known legal adage that when the law specifies a way to accomplish something, it must be done only in that way.
Since the accusations are unfounded, ECI has urged Gandhi to either publicly apologize for disparaging the ECI or openly declare and legally pursue his claims.
Rahul Gandhi should sign a formal declaration under oath and make his case legally if he genuinely thinks his claims are true, according to ECI. “If not, he should apologize to the country for making baseless accusations against a constitutional body.”
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