Congress Alleges Fraud, Election Commission Denies. Here’s the Data

(This story was first published on 26 December 2024. It is being reinstated in the light of Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Parliament, in which he has expressed concern about discrepancies in the electoral roles in the Maharashtra assembly elections. The Election Commission has denied these claims.)

Election Commission of India (ECI), on 24 December, rejected allegations of discrepancies in voter data in the recently concluded Maharashtra state assembly elections.

These allegations were leveled by the Congress in a letter submitted to the election body on 29 November.

There were two main issues raised by the party:

1. Arbitrary deletion of voters and later added over 10,000 voters to each constituency with final voter lists.

2. The voting percentage was announced by EC at 11.30 pm on the polling day from 5 pm to the final polling percentage.

In its response, the Commission stated that finally considering it is a ‘misunderstanding’ and while polling ends officially at 5 pm at 5 pm, those people are already allowed to cast their votes at the polling booths, although it is long.

The Congress party in its letter also alleged that in 50 assembly constituencies where there was an average increase of 50,000 voters before the assembly elections. The ruling governance and its colleagues won 47 out of these 50 constituencies.

The Commission in its response stated that the allegation was “misleading” and “factually wrong”. In only five constituencies, the total joints were more than 50,000 voters, the Commission said.

Congress in its letter, alleged: “The exercise of uncontrolled and arbitrary deletion and resulting insertion of voters, the state of Maharashtra saw an unprecedented growth of an estimated 47 lakh voters in the electoral rolls between July-November 2024.”

We saw the number of voters (registered voters) in Maharashtra in every election since 2004.

• We found that between 2024 Lok Sabha elections and 2024 assembly elections in Maharashtra, in five months, the Congress was in accordance with the allegations, 40,81,229 New voters were added to the role. While in five years between 2019 assembly elections and 2024 Lok Sabha elections 31,03,745 New voters were added to the role. This means that more new voters were added in five months, adding in five years.

• This is the first time since 2004 that the number of new voters has been added to the role in five months between Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, more than the number of new voters added to the role in five years between the assembly elections and the subsequent Lok Sabha elections. For example, 11,62,788 New voters were added to the role in five months between the 2019 Lok Sabha elections (held in April-May) and 2019 Maharashtra State Assembly Elections (held in October); Whereas, 51,49,047 New voters were added to the role in five years between the 2014 state assembly elections and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

• In the last two decades, Maharashtra saw a steady decline in the number of new electors in each election cycle. Probably, this is due to the declining population growth rate. A slight increase was observed in 2009 (compared to 2004) when the number of new voters was added between the 2009 Lok Sabha and 2009 assembly elections. 30,14,254There was a related figure for 2004 29,53,584 Voter. Since 2009, however, the figure went down 25,81,758 Voters in 2014 and 11,62,788 Voters in 2019, only to grow rapidly 40,81,229 Electoral is being added in 2024.

The pole body is yet to come with an explanation for these deviations from an established trend. We compared the voter figures of Maharashtra with Haryana and Jharkhand, two other states which go to elections a few months after the Lok Sabha elections. None of the two states showed equal deviation in trends.

While EC dismissed the allegation of average increase of 50,000 voters in 50 assembly constituencies as “factually wrong”, The Quint It is found that 40,81,229 new voters have been added between July-November 2024, more than 18 lakhs were concentrated in only 13 parliamentary constituencies. We have taken the parliamentary constituencies as the total number of total voters at the time of Lok Sabha elections, which is not available on the EC website.

All these constituencies saw an increase of more than 1 lakh voters in five months.

These parliamentary constituencies have been formed in 78 assembly constituencies. In these 78 assembly constituencies, nine opposition was won by the MVA alliance, one was won by AIMIM, while 68 seats were won by the BJP -led Mahayuti alliance.

However, it is worth noting that the benefit of Mahayati cannot only be held responsible for the increase in the number of voters.

In all 13 Lok Sabha seats, while the BJP -led coalition enhanced its full vote tally in the assembly elections compared to the Lok Sabha elections held five months ago, in three constituencies (Kalyan, Shirur and Nagpur), the MVA alliance also increased its full vote tally.

In addition, in many constituencies, as BJP and allies received in terms of full votes, the MVA alliance faced a significant vote loss. Therefore, it is possible that Mahayuta can benefit due to changes in MVA voters between the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the subsequent assembly elections.

Similarly, in the Maval parliamentary constituency, which also has six assembly seats, 1,69,288 New voters were added between the 2024 Lok Sabha and the assembly elections in Maharashtra. During this period, the full vote tally of Mahayut increased 2,17,177 Vote while MVA went under 1,46,683 Vote. Without matching the electoral roll, it is difficult to guess where the benefit of Mahayut came from.

Therefore, it is difficult to predict whether the benefit of Mahayut has come from the loss of new voters or MVA – or both.

,The Quint Has reached the Election Commission of India for the response. This story will be updated when they answer.)