• Source:JND
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The Election Commission of India on Thursday responded sharply to the allegations made by Lok Sabha LoP and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi regarding "vote chori", terming his claims as "baseless and incorrect." Gandhi today continued his tirade against the poll body and Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, alleging that a centralised method is being used by "some people" to delete voters from Congress strongholds and the CEC is "protecting those vote chors (thieves)".

Dismissing Rahul Gandhi's claims, the Election Commission said that there is no method or trick through which voter's name can be deleted by a member of the public through online. "Allegations made by Rahul Gandhi are incorrect and baseless. No deletion of any vote can be done online by any member of the public, as misconceived by Rahul Gandhi. No deleting can take palce without giving an opportunity of being heard to the affected person," the ECI said.

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While the ECI rejected Rahul Gandhi's claims of voter deletion, it, however, said that unsuccessful attempts were made in 2023 to delete votes, and the poll body had also filed an FIR over the issue. "In 2023, certain unsuccessful attempts were made for deletion of electors in Aland Assembly Constituency and an FIR was filed by the authority of ECI itself to investigate the matter," the poll body said.

In his press briefing, Rahul Gandhi also mentioned about the complaint filed in 2023, but claimed that the ECI did not cooperate with the CID and provided no details sought by the investigating officers. He said that the CID wrote 18 letters to the ECI, seeking destination IPs from where the forms were submitted, the device ports and OTP trails, but recceived no response.

"February 2023 investigation is started, March 2023 Karnataka CID writes to ECI asking for all details. Incomplete details are given in August, with which no investigation can happen. Whatever was not needed was given, whatever was needed that was not given (by the Election Commission)," Rahul Gandhi said.

"Second thing, 18 letters have been given. If you get one letter from CID and you don't reply, you know what will happen. Here ECI is getting 18 letters, nothing has happened. Later on Karnataka EC asks the ECI to give the information to them. You have to give information, but no reply," he alleged.

Alleging that the ECI is aware of people who are fraudulently changing the voter lists, he added, "Last letter was sent on September (2025), few days ago. No reply. This is the proof that Gyanesh Kumar is protecting vote chors. But who are these people? Who are using software, in a centralised manner deleting votes of people. Election Commission, Gyanesh Kumar knows who they are."

During his press conference, Rahul Gandhi referrred to the Aland constituency in Karnataka and alleged that there was an attempt to delete more than 6,000 voters names. He said that the "vote chori" was caught by a booth level officer, whose uncle's name was deleted from the list.

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"In Aland, Karnataka, 6018 votes, somebody tried to delete these votes. We don't know the total number of votes deleted in 2023 elections, but somebody got caught. It was caught, by most crimes, by a coincidence. What happened was that the Booth Level officer noticed that her uncle's vote has been deleted," he said.