Congress takes Maharashtra poll complaints to EC

The Congress on Friday raised with the Election Commission "serious and grave inconsistencies" which it said were being revealed in the data relating to the polling and counting processes for the recently-concluded Maharashtra assembly polls and sought an in-person hearing to present relevant evidence.

In a memorandum to the poll panel, All India Congress Committee Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole and AICC general secretary Mukul Wasnik said "these glaring inconsistencies" which strike at the very root of a transparent, free and fair electoral system are not based on any biased motives or far-fetched presumptions but have been extracted from the information made publicly available by the Commission.

Sharing the memorandum on X, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said the leaders have raised serious issues which are being discussed in the public domain.

They have asked the Election Commission for an in-person hearing to present the relevant evidence and raise constituency-wise issues as well, he said.

In their memorandum, the Congress leaders said, "In fact, questions relating to Maharashtra's voter data have also been raised by a former chief election commissioner, hence we are bringing the same to the attention of this Commission."

They flagged two issues of arbitrary deletion of voters and subsequent addition of over 10,000 voters in each constituency from the final voter lists as well as inexplicable increase in voting percentages from 5 pm to the final voter percentage declared by the Commission at 11:30 pm on the day of polling on November 20.

"In the days leading upto the polling day, the Indian National Congress and its allies received several on ground-level reports about different means being adopted by the ruling regime to commit large scale electoral fraud across the assembly constituencies in Maharashtra," the memorandum said.

The Congress leaders said these included instances of arbitrary deletion of voters from the voter list and consequent insertion of roughly 10,000 voters per constituency across Maharashtra.

"With this exercise of unchecked and arbitrary deletion and consequent insertion of voters, the state of Maharashtra witnessed an unprecedented increase of an estimated 47 lakh voters being added to the electoral roll from between July 2024 -- November 2024," the memorandum said.

It is significant to note that out of the 50 assembly constituencies where there was an average increase of 50,000 voters, the ruling regime and its allies secured victory from 47 of these constituencies, the leaders argued.

"These data points on a prima facie reading, demonstrates that -- there has been a significant and inexplicable increase in the number of registered voters across the state of Maharashtra; and there has been an exercise of deletion and addition of names in voters lists; all of which have conveniently worked to the advantage of the incumbent government," the memorandum said.

This issue was duly raised by the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance on October 19 before this Commission, he said.

"However, no cogent action was taken by this Commission on the Representation dated 19.10.2024 submitted by the MVA Alliance in this regard," the memorandum said.

They urged the Commission to immediately undertake a thorough investigation and prepare a detailed report on the addition and deletion of voters in Maharashtra.

Elaborating on the other issue, the Congress leaders said several glaring discrepancies have been reported in the voter turn out data for the Maharashtra Assembly elections.

Pointing out that as per the data made available by this Commission, the polling percentage across the state of Maharashtra at 5 pm was 58.22 percent, they said the percentage was later reported to be 65.02 percent as of 11:30 pm the same day.

In fact, it is pertinent to place reliance on the statements by former Chief Election Commissioner of India SY Qureshi, who has gone on record to state that the voter data that is made available on the date of polling is recorded and updated in real-time, therefore, there is no logical explanation of what has transpired in Maharashtra, the Congress leaders said.

The manner in which genuine doubts have arisen in the minds of the electorate regarding the conduct of free and fair elections, it is imperative that this Commission provides a clear response justifying the inconsistencies and the discrepancies which have been reported both prior to the elections and post elections, they said.

"We would also request that this Commission grant us an urgent in-person hearing to raise all our issues in detail. In fact, apart from the two issues mentioned herein, there are several other constituency-specific issues which we would like to raise before this Commission," the Congress leaders said.

The BJP-led Mahayuti alliance scripted a powerful comeback in the state assembly elections by winning 230 seats in the 288-member House.

Recovering from its Lok Sabha elections losses, the BJP bagged 132 constituencies, the highest among all constituents of the Mahayuti. Shinde's Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar's NCP also performed well. The Shiv Sena won 57 seats while the NCP won 41 seats.

The Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi suffered a setback.

The grand old party registered one of its worst performances in the state assembly polls after it won only 16 seats.

Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party-SP won just 10 seats, whereas Uddhav Thackeray's (UBT) won 20 seats.