Cong accuses ECI of enabling 'vote theft' by withholding searchable voter lists

Jairam Ramesh links the latest order to the Cong's campaign against electoral fraud and demands CEC Gyanesh Kumar's resignation

The Congress on Sunday accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of facilitating electoral fraud by refusing to provide political parties with searchable digital voter lists for eight years, citing a recent order allowing access to such data for the Special Summary Revision (SSR).

In a post on X, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said Rahul Gandhi, the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, and the party had "consistently, firmly, and vehemently" demanded voter lists in a digital format that would allow names and other details to be searched easily. He alleged that the ECI had "repeatedly rejected this demand".

Ramesh claimed that the poll body stopped providing voter lists in machine-readable formats in 2018, after the Congress identified what it described as lakhs of fake voters in Madhya Pradesh. He alleged that the demand had been rejected for eight years "to enable vote theft".

Referring to an ECI order dated 15 October, Ramesh said the poll body had now agreed to provide searchable digital voter lists for the SSR process. He said the exercise had resumed after a gap of two years in 17 states and Union territories, attributing the development to protests against alleged electoral malpractice.

.'Kab tak chappan': Jairam Ramesh's dig at PM Modi. "Every time vote theft is exposed, the Modi government adopts some new tactic," Ramesh alleged, citing restrictions on machine-readable voter lists, the alleged addition of fake voters and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

The Congress leader also demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, alleging that he had acted on the instructions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah.

"He has completely eroded the public's trust and confidence in the ECI," Ramesh said, adding that Kumar "will have to resign under any circumstances".

Ramesh said the resignation alone would not be sufficient, calling for the ECI and its information technology systems to be "completely overhauled". He also demanded an immediate halt to the SIR process, claiming it had endangered the constitutional right to vote of more than 13 crore Indians.

The allegations of electoral fraud and deliberate manipulation were made by Ramesh. His post did not include a response from the ECI to the specific claims.