Saturday, March 29, 2025
New Delhi, September 19, 2025 — Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has sharply criticized the Election Commission of India (ECI), accusing Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar of shielding “vote thieves” and undermining democracy.
In a press conference on Thursday, Gandhi alleged that the CEC deliberately blocked an investigation into attempts to delete thousands of voter names in Aland constituency, Karnataka.
“After our candidate exposed fraud, a local election officer filed an FIR. But the CID probe has been blocked by the CEC. Karnataka CID wrote 18 letters in 18 months seeking crucial evidence, yet everything has been blocked. Even requests from the Karnataka Election Commission were ignored,” Gandhi wrote on social media platform X.
He further alleged that if the attempted deletion of 6,018 voter names had gone unnoticed, the Congress candidate could have lost the election. “Destination IPs, device ports, OTP trails — all these details have been withheld. CEC Gyanesh Kumar must stop making excuses and release the evidence to the Karnataka CID now,” Gandhi demanded.
Shortly after his remarks, the Election Commission issued a fact-check post with the hashtag #ECIFactCheck, calling Gandhi’s claims “false and baseless.”
The ECI clarified:
“No vote can be deleted online by any member of the public, as Mr. Gandhi has incorrectly suggested.”
In 2023, some failed attempts were made to delete voters in Aland, and an FIR was registered by election authorities themselves.
According to records, the constituency was won by Subhash Guttedar (BJP) in 2018 and B.R. Patil (Congress) in 2023.
The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Karnataka also issued a statement, confirming that all available information about the 2023 voter deletion attempts had already been shared with the Superintendent of Police, Kalaburagi, on September 6, 2023. The note emphasized that the FIR was lodged by Election Registration Officers (EROs) under the ECI’s supervision, and that the CEO’s office has been fully cooperating with investigative agencies.
Gandhi’s sharp attack reflects growing opposition concerns over the neutrality of the Election Commission ahead of upcoming polls. His claim that voter names were being “systematically deleted” has heightened political tensions in Karnataka, a state where Congress recently secured victory.
The controversy underscores a deeper clash between the opposition and constitutional authorities, with Gandhi framing the dispute as a fight to protect democracy, while the ECI insists that due process has been followed.
