New Delhi: Facing criticism from opposition parties over irregularities in voter rolls following Lok Sabha leader of opposition Sabha Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of over one lakh votes being “stolen” in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission (EC) has sought to shift the onus of responsibility on political parties, saying they should have raised concerns “at the right time” during the claims and objections period following the publication of voter rolls.

The EC's statement on Saturday (August 16) has been deemed an abdication of its responsibility by opposition parties, which have continued their protest inside and outside parliament against the special intensive revision (SIR) in Bihar and demanding greater transparency from the poll body.

While the EC's statement did not name any political party, it said that recently “some Political Parties and individuals are raising issues about errors in Electoral Rolls, including the Electoral Rolls prepared in the past.”

“The appropriate time to raise any issue with the Electoral Rolls would have been during the Claims and Objections period of that phase, which is precisely the objective behind sharing the Electoral Rolls with all Political Parties and the Candidates,” the statement said.

“Had these issues been raised at the right time through the right channels, it would have enabled the concerned SDM/EROs [sub-divisional magistrates/electoral registration officers] to correct the mistakes, if genuine, before those elections.”

On August 7, Gandhi in a press conference alleged collusion between the EC and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and said that the Congress lost the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 elections because over one lakh votes were “stolen”.

Gandhi said that while the Congress won seven out of eight segments in the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency, it lagged behind the BJP in the Mahadevapura assembly segment, in which it was defeated by over 1,14,000 votes.

Gandhi alleged that 1,00,250 votes were “stolen” through five ways – 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 voters with fake and invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters or single-address voters, 4,132 voters with invalid photos and 33,692 voters misusing Form 6, through which new voters are registered.

“After the publication of the draft Electoral Rolls, digital and physical copies of the same are shared with all political parties and put on the ECI website for anyone to see,” the poll body statement said on Saturday.

“Following the publication of the draft ER, a full one-month period is available with the Electors and Political Parties for the filing of Claims and Objections before the final ER is published.

“After the publication of the final ER, digital and physical copies are again shared with all the recognised Political Parties and published on the ECI website. Following the publication of the final ER, a two-tiered process of appeals is available wherein the first appeal maybe preferred with the District Magistrate and the second appeal with the CEO [chief electoral officer] of every State/UT,” the statement said.

While the EC has sought an oath from Gandhi to examine his allegations, something that can only be sought under Rule 20(3)(b) following a revision exercise, the poll body's statement shifted blame on to political parties, saying they along with their “Booth Level Agents (BLAs) did not examine the Electoral Rolls at the appropriate time and did not point out errors, if any, to SDMs/EROs, DEOs [district electoral officers] or CEOs.”

Opposition parties have condemned the EC's statement and accused the poll body of “shrugging responsibility”.

Congress MP and general secretary K.C. Venugopal said that the poll body “has crossed all limits of shamelessness by shrugging all its responsibilities in the face of grave allegations of vote theft and mass rigging”.

“Constitutional authorities are expected to be the epitome of probity - not hide behind vaguely drafted press notes to hide their guilt in destroying democracy. The onus on catching the scale and volume of their vote theft cannot be on political parties and its BLAs,” he said.

Venugopal said that the “tone and tenor of this press note raises greater suspicions”.

“The tone and tenor of this press note raises greater suspicions that the ECI will take no steps to address the public’s grave concerns about mass scale vote rigging done by the BJP-controlled ECI,” he said.

“If the ECI “welcomes the scrutiny of electoral rolls”, the Chief Election Commissioner and other ECs must come clean on why they still refuse to provide parties with machine-readable electoral rolls and why CCTV footage is being deleted.”

Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya accused the EC of “abdicating responsibility”.

“So the EC wants to say that if political parties and their BLAs cannot stop the errors at the time of preparation and publication of an electoral roll then nothing can be done. In other words, the EC abdicates its responsibilities to produce an accurate electoral roll,” he said.

Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said that it is not for political parties to clean voter rolls.

“It is not the job of political parties to clean up electoral rolls. It is not the job of the Supreme Court to adjudicate. The Election Commission of India for far too long has been evading its own responsibility and accountability in maintaining transparency leading to a huge trust deficit amongst voters and the electoral process,” she said.

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