EC slams parties for questioning past Electoral Rolls, says intervention should have happened during 'Claims and Objections' period
The Election Commission of India on Saturday slammed parties and individuals for raising issues about errors in the electoral rolls of the past, adding that the provision for Claims and Objections period has been given to raise any issue with the Electoral Rolls. The ECI added that it would have enabled SDM EROs to correct the mistakes, if genuine, before elections if such errors were pointed out during the stipulated time.
"Recently, some Political Parties and individuals are raising issues about errors in the Electoral Rolls, including those prepared in the past. The appropriate time to raise any issue with the Electoral Rolls would have been during the Claims and Objections period of that phase, which is precisely the objective behind sharing the Electoral Rolls with all Political Parties and the Candidates. Had these issues been raised at the right time through the right channels, it would have enabled the concerned SDM EROs to correct the mistakes, if genuine, before those elections," ECI said in a press release.
In a 10-point release, the ECI said that the election system for Parliament and Assembly elections in India is a multi-layered decentralised construct, adding that as per the guidelines, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), who are SDM-level officers, prepare and finalise the Electoral Rolls (ER) with the help of Booth Level Officers (BLOs). EROS and BLOs undertake the responsibility for the correctness of Electoral Rolls. The polling body added that the draft Electoral Rolls, digital and physical copies, are shared with all political parties and put on the ECI website for anyone to see.
"Following the publication of the draft ER, a full one-month period is available with the Electors and Political Parties for the filing of Claims and Objections before the final ER is published," the polling body said. The physical and digital copies of the final ER are also sent to political parties, EC said, adding that a two-tiered process of appeals is available wherein the first appeal maybe preferred with the District Magistrate (DM) and the second appeal with the CEO of every State/UT.
Finally, the body said it continues to welcome the scrutiny of Electoral Rolls by Political Parties and any Elector. It will help SDMs/EROs to remove the errors and purify the Electoral Rolls which has always been the objective of ECI.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
Major irregularities in 2024 Maharashtra Assembly polls, claims Vote for Democracy report
Vote for Democracy (VFD), a civic action group led by distinguished experts, has released a constituency-level analysis of Maharashtra's 288 Assembly seats, highlighting serious anomalies in the November 2024 election. The report, titled 'Dysfunctional ECI and Weaponisation of India's Election System', draws on official Election Commission of India (ECI) and Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) data as well as accounts from polling staff and voters, raising questions about transparency and accountability. The civic group is guided by election experts M.G. Devasahayam, IAS (retired), Coordinator of Citizens' Commission on Elections; Professor Pyara Lal Garg, former Dean, Panjab University; Madhav Deshpande, specialist in computer software and architecture, and Professor Harish Karnick, former Professor, Computer Science, IIT-Kanpur. Systemic vulnerabilities The report released on Saturday (August 16, 2025) states that the 'weaponisation' of India's electoral system lies in the vulnerabilities of four components of the electronic voting process — microchips that record votes, Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs), Symbol Loading Units (SLUs), and electoral rolls. According to VFD, the system has ceased to be standalone since 2017 and is now linked to the internet, making it susceptible to manipulation. It further alleges that the ECI's methods of managing voter rolls have created large-scale disenfranchisement, cumulatively posing a serious threat to electoral democracy. VFD notes that in the November 2024 polls, Maharashtra recorded a sudden late-night surge in turnout. At 5 p.m., voter turnout stood at 58.22%, but by midnight it had risen to 66.05%, a jump of 7.83%, which amounted to about 48 lakh extra votes. The sharpest increases were recorded in Nanded, Jalgaon, Hingoli, Solapur, Beed, and Dhule, where double-digit spikes were observed, even though historically such late surges have been minimal. The report also points out that several seats were decided by very narrow margins, with 25 seats won by fewer than 3,000 votes and 69 seats by fewer than 10,000 votes, suggesting that even small anomalies could have changed outcomes. Erratic changes The study highlights erratic changes in the electoral roll between the May 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the November 2024 Assembly polls. In just six months, the rolls expanded by more than 46 lakh voters, concentrated across 12,000 polling booths in 85 constituencies, predominantly in areas where the BJP had lost in the parliamentary elections. Some booths reportedly added more than 600 voters after 5 p.m., which would have implied an additional ten hours of polling that did not occur in reality. Official records also showed discrepancies, with the ECI reporting over 9.64 crore voters on August 30, 2024, while the CEO of Maharashtra reported 9.53 crore for the same date. Within weeks, these numbers fluctuated sharply, with a sudden increase of over 16 lakh voters between October 15 and October 30, 2024. According to the report, the data mismatches between 2019 and 2024 are also significant. In 2019, Maharashtra's voter rolls for the Assembly polls were larger than those for the Lok Sabha polls by about 11.6 lakh voters, while votes polled increased by 8.4 lakh between the two elections. In 2024, however, the discrepancy was far higher, with rolls growing by nearly 40 lakh voters between the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls and votes polled increasing by more than 71 lakh in the same period. The report notes that voter rolls grew by 71.8 lakh between the 2019 and 2024 Assembly elections, while votes polled jumped by 96.7 lakh, a rise not explained by demographic trends. The report further observes sudden and disproportionate vote surges that benefited specific parties. In the Lok Sabha elections held in May 2024, the BJP averaged about 88,713 votes per Assembly segment, whereas in the Assembly elections in November the average rose to 1,16,064 votes per seat, reflecting a sudden gain of 28,000 votes per seat without corresponding demographic growth. For example, in Kamthi, the Congress vote remained at about 1.35 lakh while the BJP gained 56,000 votes, and in Karad (South) the tally rose by 41,000 votes in just six months, a change not seen in five years. In Nanded, the Congress won the parliamentary seat but lost all six Assembly segments in the same area, receiving 1.59 lakh fewer votes despite simultaneous polling. In high-profile seats VFD also draws attention to high-profile anomalies, such as the addition of 29,219 voters in Nagpur South-West in six months, exceeding the ECI's 4% verification threshold, with local booth officials admitting incomplete checks. In Solapur's Markadwadi village, residents alleged that the EVM results did not reflect the actual votes cast, while police blocked a mock poll using paper ballots. The report mentions several procedural and technical concerns, including the presence of routers near polling stations, sudden power cuts during counting, late arrival of EVMs at strong rooms, failures of CCTV surveillance, mismatches between Form 17C records and control unit counts, unexplained EVM battery readings, and alleged breaches of strong rooms. It questions whether the ECI has independent control over the EVM source code and highlights potential conflicts of interest, noting that BJP members sit on the boards of ECIL and BEL, the manufacturers of EVMs. Amending ECI rules Concerns were also raised about data secrecy and legal changes curtailing scrutiny. In December 2024, the ECI amended Rule 93 of the Conduct of Election Rules to restrict access to CCTV footage and Form 17C, just days after a court ordered their release in another State's polls. In May 2025, the retention period for CCTV footage was reduced from one year to 45 days, allowing evidence to be destroyed before legal challenges could proceed. Despite 100% webcasting of polling stations, neither video footage nor VVPAT slips are available for public verification. The report further says that over 100 complaints of hate speech were filed during the Maharashtra polls, including against specific leaders, but no visible action was taken by the ECI. VFD concludes that the scale, precision, and constituency-specific targeting of these anomalies point to a structured pattern of electoral manipulation rather than administrative error. It warns that Maharashtra's 2024 Assembly elections serve as a case study of how India's election system can be weaponised, and calls the findings a warning for future polls across the country. Call for decentralisation The organisation has demanded that the voter system be decentralised, with the ECI conducting only parliamentary and presidential elections while State Election Commissions conduct Assembly and local polls. It has also called for a forensic audit of EVMs, VVPATs, and voter rolls, public release of machine-readable rolls and election records, reversal of restrictive amendments to Rule 93, and legislative guarantees for end-to-end vote verifiability.
India Today
2 hours ago
- India Today
Electoral rolls prepared transparently, parties involved at all stages: Poll body
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday criticised political parties and individuals for raising concerns over alleged errors in electoral rolls from previous elections, and said that the designated Claims and Objections period exists precisely for this purpose. The poll body outlined the process of preparing electoral rolls and said that it is a transparent, multi-stage exercise involving political parties at every a 10-point statement, the Election Commission clarified that had such issues been flagged during the stipulated time, they could have been examined and, if genuine, corrected by the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) before the elections. The commission also highlighted that political parties were involved at every stage, adding that several political parties and their Booth Level Agents failed to review the draft rolls during the appropriate time and did not raise objections."Recently, some Political Parties and individuals are raising issues about errors in the Electoral Rolls, including those prepared in the past. The appropriate time to raise any issue with the Electoral Rolls would have been during the Claims and Objections period of that phase, which is precisely the objective behind sharing the Electoral Rolls with all Political Parties and the Candidates,' ECI said in a press release.'Had these issues been raised at the right time through the right channels, it would have enabled the concerned SDM EROs to correct the mistakes, if genuine, before those elections," it Election Commission said that the draft electoral rolls are published in both digital and physical formats and shared with all political parties. The commission added that draft rolls are also published on the ECI website for public explained that Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), who are Sub-Divisional Magistrate-level officials, are tasked with preparing and finalising the electoral rolls, with assistance from Booth Level Officers (BLOs). The responsibility for the accuracy of the rolls lies with the EROs and statement comes a night before the Election Commission is set to hold a press conference at the National Media Centre in the national capital, likely to address recent political developments. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has stepped up his attacks on the commission, accusing it of enabling large-scale voter manipulation during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to benefit the alleged that fake voters were added to rolls in key states like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka. He claimed over one lakh fraudulent votes were cast in Karnataka's Mahadevapura assembly segment, part of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat, which the BJP won by 32,707 Congress has since extended similar allegations to other constituencies, with Gandhi suggesting that voter fraud may have influenced outcomes in up to 70 seats where the party lost by fewer than 50,000 votes.- EndsTune InMust Watch
NDTV
2 hours ago
- NDTV
"Some Parties Didn't Ask For Corrections...": Poll Body On Voter Roll Row
The Election Commission (EC) clarified that political parties are involved at all stages of preparation of electoral rolls and did not raise objections in time, as the poll body faces criticism over the voter list revision in Bihar and vote theft allegations. A day before it is scheduled to address a presser on Sunday, the EC said that physical and digital copies of draft electoral rolls are shared with all political parties and put on the ECI website for anyone to see. A one month period is then given for the filing of claims and objections. The final published voter list is also shared with all recognised political parties and a two-tiered appeals process is made available. Amid the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of voter lists ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls, the EC's is facing questions from Opposition parties, which claim that the move will disenfranchise crores of eligible citizens due to want of papers. The Supreme Court also directed the poll to publish online the list of over 65 lakh voters proposed for deletion during the SIR exercise. Defending itself against the criticism, the EC said in Saturday's release, "It seems that some political parties and their Booth Level Agents (BLAs) did not examine the Electoral Rolls at the appropriate time and did not point out errors." The EC also said the the parties that have objections to the electoral rolls did not raised objections "at the right time through the right channels". The Election Commission has responded to the Opposition's statements on the Bihar voter list revision exercise, stating that all political parties in Bihar were provided with the complete list of proposed deletions beginning July 20, 2025. This includes the names, reasons for proposed deletions-ranging from death, permanent migration, untraceability, to duplicate entries-and clear guidelines on filing objections. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also levelled voter theft charges against the EC, for which the poll body has sought an apology if he fails to give an undertaking backing his allegations. The commission has asked the Congress leader to submit the names of those he claims have been wrongfully added or removed from the voters' list, along with a signed declaration.
