Both the Congress and Rahul Gandhi have repeatedly accused the poll body of manipulating voter data to benefit the BJP. A day after the Congress urged the Election Commission to provide a machine-readable digital copy of Maharashtra’s voters’ list, reported on Thursday, citing poll body sources, that the demand is “not tenable” under the existing legal framework.
They also added that a similar plea by the party was dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2019. The report added that while Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been demanding a machine-readable digital copy of the electoral roll for the past seven months, poll body sources said the party’s demand is “not new.” “Rather, it forms part of a strategy by the political party for well over eight years, a fact that appears to have been selectively obscured in the present representation,” an EC source said.
While Rahul Gandhi’s renewed demand is in line with the Congress party’s long-standing position, it is “not tenable within the contours of the prevailing legal framework.”
The report added that the issue had already been raised before the Supreme Court in a 2018 writ petition filed by Kamal Nath, then president of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee. The sources reportedly said that Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, may not have been fully apprised of the finality with which the matter was settled in judicial records.
Referring to the Supreme Court’s 2019 verdict in Kamal Nath vs Election Commission of India, the report quoted sources as saying that the court had found merit in the EC’s submissions. They pointed out that Clause 11.2.2.2 of the Election Manual refers to “text mode,” and that the draft electoral roll in that format had already been provided to the petitioner, as noted by the apex court.
“The clause nowhere says that the draft electoral roll has to be put up on the Chief Electoral Officer’s website in a ‘searchable PDF’. Therefore, the petitioner cannot claim, as a right, that the draft electoral roll should be placed on the website in a ‘searchable mode’. It has only to be in ‘text mode’ and it is so provided,” the apex court had observed.
On Wednesday, the Congress urged the Election Commission to provide a machine-readable digital copy of Maharashtra’s voters’ list, along with polling day video footage from both Maharashtra and Haryana, within a week. Both the Congress and Rahul Gandhi have repeatedly accused the poll body of manipulating voter data to benefit the BJP.
Gandhi has also alleged that last year’s Maharashtra assembly elections were rigged.
The Election Commission has rejected these allegations, saying that elections are conducted strictly in accordance with electoral laws enacted by Parliament.
