ECI sat on vote-rigging complaint in a Maharashtra seat, says Congress

The Maharashtra Congress has accused the Election Commission of failing to act on its complaint of vote rigging in the Rajura constituency in the State during the Assembly election held last year.

In the election, Congress candidate Subhash Dhote lost to the BJP’s Devrao Bhongle by a margin of 3,050 votes in the constituency in Chandrapur district.

The party alleged that the Rajura vote-rigging was similar to the Mahadevpura case, which was highlighted by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi some time ago. (Mr. Gandhi had claimed that over one lakh “fake votes” were created in Mahadevapura in Karnataka to ensure a BJP victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.)

“In the five months between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, the voter count in the Rajura constituency increased by 55,000. Between October 1 and October 15, 2024, as many as 11,667 bogus voters were registered online. After Congress candidate Subhash Dhote lodged a formal complaint, 6,853 of these entries were deleted, and an FIR was filed. However, no further action has followed. The Congress had demanded that the IP addresses, email IDs, and mobile numbers used for these fake registrations be revealed. But till date, this information has not been provided,” Maharashtra Congress’ senior spokesperson Atul Londhe told reporters here.

Mr. Londhe accused the administration of withholding the information deliberately, to protect the culprits.

Party to approach court

The party said that it will approach a court of law if the Election Commission does not take action within one month.

Mr. Londhe also claimed that the police failed to take action against the BJP candidate though the Election Commission’s flying squad had seized ₹61 lakh in cash and polling material from him. “A case was registered at the Gadchandur Police Station after the seizure. Yet, no action has been taken to date. Despite repeated petitions from Mr. Dhote to the Election Commission, the Chandrapur District Collector, and the Superintendent of Police, there has been no movement on the case. The Congress is already fighting this battle in the people’s court, but we will also fight it in the court of law,” he said.

Mr. Dhote, who has been following up on the complaint of vote rigging, told The Hindu: “When the names started getting added to the list in October, we realised that many were benami. Some had addresses in Uttar Pradesh, some in Telangana. When we raised objections about the high number of additions to the voters’ list daily, 6,853 voters’ names were deleted. But that was the time when we were busy in our election campaigning. We later found out that in Rajura alone, there were 554 unaccounted-for votes. In Gadchandur, there were 1,100 unaccounted votes. We have been seeking response, but to no avail.”