ECI sat on vote-rigging criticism in a Maharashtra seat, says Congress

The Maharashtra Congress has accused the Election Commission of failing to behave on its criticism of vote rigging within the Rajura constituency within the State throughout the Assembly election held final yr.

In the election, Congress candidate Subhash Dhote misplaced to the BJP’s Devrao Bhongle by a margin of three,050 votes within the constituency in Chandrapur district.

The social gathering alleged that the Rajura vote-rigging was just like the Mahadevpura case, which was highlighted by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi a while in the past. (Mr. Gandhi had claimed that over one lakh “faux votes” had been created in Mahadevapura in Karnataka to make sure a BJP victory within the 2024 Lok Sabha election.)

“In the 5 months between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, the voter depend within the Rajura constituency elevated by 55,000. Between October 1 and October 15, 2024, as many as 11,667 bogus voters had been registered on-line. After Congress candidate Subhash Dhote lodged a proper criticism, 6,853 of those entries had been deleted, and an FIR was filed. However, no additional motion has adopted. The Congress had demanded that the IP addresses, electronic mail IDs, and cell numbers used for these faux registrations be revealed. But until date, this data has not been offered,” Maharashtra Congress’ senior spokesperson Atul Londhe informed reporters right here.

Mr. Londhe accused the administration of withholding the data intentionally, to guard the culprits.

Party to strategy courtroom

The social gathering mentioned that it’s going to strategy a courtroom of regulation if the Election Commission doesn’t take motion inside one month.

Mr. Londhe additionally claimed that the police did not take motion in opposition to the BJP candidate although the Election Commission’s flying squad had seized ₹61 lakh in money and polling materials from him. “A case was registered on the Gadchandur Police Station after the seizure. Yet, no motion has been taken so far. Despite repeated petitions from Mr. Dhote to the Election Commission, the Chandrapur District Collector, and the Superintendent of Police, there was no motion on the case. The Congress is already preventing this battle within the individuals’s courtroom, however we will even battle it within the courtroom of regulation,” he mentioned.

Mr. Dhote, who has been following up on the criticism of vote rigging, informed The Hindu: “When the names began getting added to the record in October, we realised that many had been benami. Some had addresses in Uttar Pradesh, some in Telangana. When we raised objections in regards to the excessive variety of additions to the voters’ record day by day, 6,853 voters’ names had been deleted. But that was the time after we had been busy in our election campaigning. We later came upon that in Rajura alone, there have been 554 unaccounted-for votes. In Gadchandur, there have been 1,100 unaccounted votes. We have been searching for response, however to no avail.”