Congress's Kota Neelima Says EC's Allegations Against Her, Pawan Khera Are ‘Frivolous and False’
Hyderabad: Senior Congress leader Pawan Khera's wife Neelima Kota, who has been at the centre of a controversy after she received a notice from the Election Commission (EC) for having two voter identity cards in her name, has expressed dismay that the poll panel, like herself, was unaware of two cards existing in her name for eight years after she had applied to change her address and transfer her vote upon relocating from Delhi to Hyderabad in 2017.
Neelima is vice president of the Telangana Congress committee and unsuccessfully contested the 2023 state assembly elections from the Sanathnagar constituency, where she is presently party in-charge.
She is a native of Telangana and her husband Khera is chairman of the media and publicity committee of the All India Congress Committee headquartered in Delhi.
“The EC suddenly woke up to send the notice to my Delhi address within hours of [BJP information and technology chief] Amit Malviya posting information about two active ID cards in my name on social media,” Neelima told The Wire of the poll body's missive issued to her on September 4.
She alleged: “It clearly shows that [all] information on dual entries in electoral rolls was with the BJP much before the EC got to know [about them]. It shows how the BJP is in the know about lakhs of such votes in the country, against which Rahul Gandhi is leading a campaign in the name of ‘vote chori’ [theft].”
Neelima felt that Gandhi's campaign may have played an important role in the EC's notices to her and Khera.
Khera was sent a notice two days before Neelima was, on September 2, on the charge of enrolling as a voter in the New Delhi and Jangpura assembly constituencies of the national capital, while Neelima's name figured in the New Delhi seat and the Khairatabad assembly constituency in Hyderabad.
She said both of them applied for an address change after they moved from the Kakanagar locality in the New Delhi constituency to Nizamuddin (East) in Jangpura in 2016.
“Like any husband and wife living in the same house would do, we filled” Form 6 – which is used to enrol new voters in a constituency – and “even took an acknowledgement. After 2017, I relocated to Khairatabad in Hyderabad, where I registered as a voter.”
“I believed in good faith that the EC might have acted on my application in Delhi to delete my name from the local rolls. I got a new ID card in Khairatabad under that impression. I believed I had only one card till [earlier this month], when the BJP came up with its social media posts. Why did the EC not process my application?” she asked.
Calling the contents in the notices to her and Khera “frivolous and false allegations”, Neelima said both of them had decided not to respond to them immediately. The poll body had given her time until September 10 to respond and until September 8 for Khera.
She said they will follow a legal course of action to check the ‘conspiracy’ of the BJP ‘in connivance with the EC’.
In his notice to Neelima, the electoral registration officer (ERO) of the New Delhi assembly constituency had said:
“As you may be aware, that being registered in the electoral roll of more than one constituency is a penal offence under the Representation of the People Act, 1950. You are therefore directed to show cause as to why action should not be taken against you under the said Act. Your reply should reach this office by 11 am on September 10.”
A day before the New Delhi ERO issued notice to Neelima, Malviya on September 2 had shared photos of two separate voter roll entries in her name, one in the New Delhi seat and the other in the Khairatabad seat.
And in a previous post on September 2, he had shared photos of entries in Khera's name in the New Delhi and Jangpura seats respectively.
Malviya also shared details of the two cards in Neelima's name – one bearing the number TDZ2666014 and registered in Khairatabad, which he said was active in the 2023 Telangana assembly election as well as in 2025 – and the other having a number SJE0755975 and registered in the New Delhi seat.
He questioned Gandhi's silence over the issue, writing that “Rahul Gandhi held a press conference and, without adequate due diligence, targeted and tarnished honest voters – even putting them at risk by revealing their identities without consent. He doxxed young, upwardly mobile professionals and poor daily wagers who had moved cities in search of better opportunities.”
Gandhi in a press conference last month had pointed to irregularities in the electoral rolls of the Mahadevapura assembly seat in Bengaluru – and in which the Congress had trailed in the 2024 general election – alleging that it represented an instance of ‘vote theft’.
Neelima said the EC flouted voter secrecy by disclosing her elector details. She asked if the panel will serve notice to the BJP for the unauthorised public disclosure of her personal details. In a response to Gandhi's press conference, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had last month claimed that “some political parties” showing elector details publicly amounted to a ‘breach of their privacy’.
Neelima also questioned the constitutional validity of the notices, saying the party will wage a legal battle over them.
Following the notices, Congress workers had staged a symbolic funeral procession of the EC at Hyderabad's Rasoolpura crossroads, shaving their heads and raising slogans condemning the poll body's ‘biased’ attitude.
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