Rahul Gandhi (File photo)
NEW DELHI: The Election Commission (EC) will hold a press conference here on Sunday to put across a “point-by-point counter” to what it calls misinformation being spread by a few opposition parties regarding the past and ongoing revision of electoral roll in certain states, sources in the poll panel told TOI. The event coincides with the start of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s ‘voter adhikar yatra’ that will see him amplifying his allegations of roll imperfections across Bihar. EC and the state chief electoral officers concerned have repeatedly countered allegations of ‘vote chori’ — levelled by Rahul at a press conference on Aug 7 and echoed by many opposition parties — through a series of ‘fact-check’ posts on social media. But this is the first time that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and election commissioners S S Sandhu and Vivek Joshi will directly rebut what EC sources termed “misinformation” and “lies” being spread by parties that are “involved at each stage of preparation of the roll” and “get appropriate time and opportunity to rectify errors both before and after publication of the electoral roll”.‘Important to timely counter misinformation drive that has reached absurd level’EC sources pointed out that though the allegations of voter roll discrepancies were raised by Rahul Gandhi more than a year after the relevant elections in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Haryana, the CEOs concerned had offered to probe them, provided he, as required by the law, furnished a signed declaration affirming the claimed errors to be true. The Congress MP has declined to submit an affidavit.“It is, thus, important to timely counter the misinformation campaign that has now reached absurd levels with the use of artificial intelligencegenerated content to mislead the people and shake voter confidence in the electoral system,” a functionary told TOI. EC reiterated Saturday the election system for parliamentary and assembly poll is a multi-layered, decentralised construct as per law, with sub division magistrate (SDM)- level officers doubling as electoral registration officers (EROs), to prepare and finalise the roll with the help of booth level officers (BLOs). EROs and BLOs take responsibility for correctness of the roll.After publication of the draft electoral roll, its digital and physical copies are shared with all political parties and put on ECI website.Electors and parties can file claims and objections for one month before the final roll is published. Even after this, two-tiered appeals may be filed, first with DM and then with CEO. “It seems some political parties and their booth level agents did not examine the electoral rolls at the appropriate time (during claims and objections and then, the appeal period) and did not point out errors, if any, to SDMs/EROs, DEOs or CEOs,” EC said, adding if done at the “right time through the right channels, it would have enabled the SDM/ERO to correct the mistakes, if genuine, before those elections”.
