Rahul Gandhi's allegations on vote theft baseless, incorrect: EC

The Election Commission on Thursday dubbed as incorrect and baseless the allegations made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi that CEC Gyanesh Kumar is protecting "vote chors".

No deletion can take place without giving an opportunity of being heard to the affected person, the EC asserted. "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 Gandhi," it said.

Gandhi accused Chief Election Commissioner Kumar of protecting "vote chors" and people who have destroyed democracy, and cited data from a Karnataka Assembly constituency to claim that votes of Congress supporters were being systematically deleted ahead of elections.

The EC pointed out that in 2023, "certain unsuccessful attempts" were made for deletion of electors in Aland Assembly constituency and an FIR was filed by the authority of EC itself to investigate the matter.

"As per records, Aland Assembly Constituency was won by Subhadh Guttedar (BJP) in 2018 and BR Patil (INC) in 2023," it noted.