A day after Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar reiterated that the addition of voters to electoral rolls was a fool-proof process, the Congress on Wednesday (January 8, 2025) claimed that the Election Commission (EC) appeared to have enrolled more voters in Maharashtra than the adult population of the State as estimated in a report of the National Democratic Alliance government.
The CEC had on Tuesday (January 7, 2025) while addressing a press conference to announce the dates for the Delhi Assembly election sought to address doubts over the increase in total electors in voters lists for the recent spate of Assembly elections.
In a statement on Wednesday (January 8, 2025), the chairperson of the Congress data analytics department Praveen Chakravarty said that the Congress had pointed out the sudden increase of nearly 50 lakh new voter additions in just four months for the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha election.
The CEC outlined the process of voter addition in detail and claimed that the process is extremely tight and robust to prevent fake voter additions. “We have a simple one-line response – if the process is so robust, how is it that the total eligible electors in Maharashtra seem to be more than the total adult population as estimated by the Narendra Modi government’s own report?” Mr. Chakravarty asked.
The statement quoted from page 229 of the November 2019 report of the National Commission on Population of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, that Maharashtra’s estimated adult population in 2024 can be calculated as 9.54 crore, based on the five year projections of the report.
“As per the EC, the total enrolled electors in Maharashtra for Vidhan Sabha election were 9.70 crores. That is, the EC seems to have enrolled 16 lakh more electors than the entire adult population in Maharashtra, as estimated by the Narendra Modi government,” it said.
Just this one simple data point that the EC may have registered more electors than the adult population quashes the CEC’s claim that the process of voter addition and deletion is very robust and unquestionable.
Mr. Chakravarty also claimed that Aadhaar enrolment data in Maharashtra also reinforced their claim that the ECI’s total voter enrolment in Maharashtra may be higher than the total adult population.
The Congress had in a letter to the CEC on December 10 sought for data related to the Maharashtra Assembly election, including Assembly wise voter rolls and booth wise result sheets for both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections to be made public.
A nine-member delegation of the Congress had earlier met the Commission and demanded the same.
Published – January 08, 2025 09:34 pm IST