Mon Feb 03 10:54:31 UTC 2025: ## Rahul Gandhi Accuses EC of Discrepancies in Maharashtra Election Voter Rolls
**New Delhi:** Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has again raised concerns about the November 2022 Maharashtra Assembly elections, alleging significant discrepancies in the state’s voter list. Speaking in the Lok Sabha during a debate on the President’s Address, Gandhi claimed that approximately 7 million new voters were inexplicably added to the rolls just before the election, a figure he compared to the entire population of Himachal Pradesh.
Gandhi demanded that the Election Commission (EC) provide the MVA alliance (comprising Congress, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), and Nationalist Congress Party) with the electoral roll data for independent analysis. He asserted that this massive influx of new voters casts doubt on the election’s integrity.
While the EC has yet to respond to Gandhi’s latest accusations, it previously dismissed similar claims of arbitrary additions or deletions to the voter list. Shiv Sena MP Shrikant Shinde flatly rejected Gandhi’s allegations as “absolutely false and baseless,” citing the EC’s publicly available data.
The MVA alliance secured only 50 seats in the 288-member assembly, a stark contrast to the Mahayuti (BJP, Shiv Sena, and NCP) coalition’s 235 seats. This isn’t the first time Gandhi has voiced these concerns; he previously questioned the election’s credibility and the EC’s transparency. A Congress delegation also previously met with the EC to express similar concerns, but the EC refuted their claims as “factually incorrect and misleading.” The ongoing dispute highlights simmering tensions over the election results and the integrity of the electoral process in Maharashtra.
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