NEW DELHI: Election Commission had provided police with detailed information on Aland voter-deletion case two years ago, including the objector’s name, EPIC number, mobile number used for login, Form 7 reference number, contact number given for processing, IP address, applicant’s location, and dates of form submission and user creation.”Basically, the information Rahul has now asked EC to share was already given by Karnataka CEO to state CID two years earlier,” an EC official said, contrasting this with Rahul’s refusal to submit a signed affidavit to back claims of voter-roll irregularities in Mahadevapura, for which CEC Gyanesh Kumar had set a similar deadline.Regarding Rahul’s charge of fake voters in Maharashtra’s Rajoura constituency, the electoral registration officer said that between Oct 1 and 17, 2024, the constituency received 7,592 applications for new enrolment. “On scrutiny by booth-level officers, 6,861 applications were found invalid due to fictitious identities, faulty photos, documents or addresses, and were rejected,” the ERO said. He added no fake names were added to the rolls and that a comprehensive probe and criminal action under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the IT Act, 2000, were ordered after the irregularities surfaced.Soon after Rahul’s PowerPoint presentation, EC dismissed his claims on Aland as “incorrect and baseless,” stressing that no voter’s name can be deleted online by the public “as misconceived by Rahul Gandhi”. It said any affected elector is given a chance to be heard before the electoral registration officer decides on deletion. “In 2023, certain unsuccessful attempts were made for deletion of electors in Aland AC and an FIR was filed by the poll panel itself to probe the matter,” an EC spokesperson said, noting that BJP’s Subash Guttedar won the Aland seat in 2018 and Congress’s B R Patil in 2023.Karnataka CEO said 6,018 Form 7 applications seeking deletions were submitted online in Dec 2022 through the national voters’ service portal, the voter helpline app and Garuda app. Given the unusually high number, each application was verified; only 24 were genuine while 5,994 were rejected, preventing wrongful deletions. Based on these findings, an FIR was lodged on Feb 21, 2023. The CEO said all data was handed to Kalaburagi SP. Go to Source
