‘No vote deletion can be done online’: EC says Rahul Gandhi’s accusations are incorrect, baseless

The Election Commission of India (ECI) responded to Rahul Gandhi’s accusations by fact-checking his claims that someone tried to delete over 6,000 votes in Karnataka’s Aland constituency. “Allegations made by Rahul Gandhi are incorrect and baseless,” said the poll body. Gandhi also said that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar protected the ones who stole the votes.

The poll body said, “No deletion of any vote can be done online by any member of the public as misconceived by Rahul Gandhi.”

In 2023, certain unsuccessful attempts were made to delete electors in Aland Assembly Constituency, the EC acknowledged but added that an FIR was filed by the authority of the ECI itself to investigate the matter. It added that BJP’s Subhadh Guttedar won from the constituency in 2018 and INC’s BR Patil in 2023.

Gandhi said someone tried to delete 6,018 votes and got caught by chance. The names of the voters of the Congress were being deleted systematically, he said. "The booth-level officer noticed that her uncle's vote got deleted and found her neighbour had deleted the vote of her uncle. She asked her neighbour who said he had no idea. It was found that some other force hijacked the process and deleted the vote -- and as luck would have it got caught," Gandhi said.

Gandhi said 6.018 applications were filed impersonating voters and this was done automatically using mobile numbers from outside Karnataka. The CID has sent 18 letters in 18 months to the Election Commission and has asked for some very simple facts such as the destination IP from where these applications were filled and OTP trails, said Gandhi, noting that there is an ongoing investigation in the state.

He said the EC knows who is doing this but Gyanesh Kumar is protecting the culprits. "EC knows who is doing this. I want every youngster in India to know this. They are doing this to your future. When they are not giving this information, they are defending the murderers of democracy," Gandhi said.

Accusing Gyanesh Kumar squarely, Gandhi said, "I am going to make a serious claim about Gyanesh Kumar. I am not saying this lightly. The CEC is protecting vote chors and the people who have destroyed Indian democracy.”