'Not tenable': EC sources on Congress seeking digital copy of Maharashtra voters' list

New Delhi: A day after the Congress urged the Election Commission to provide machine-readable digital copy of the Maharashtra voters' list, EC sources on Thursday said the demand is "not tenable" under the prevailing legal framework, asserting that a similar plea of the party was junked by the Supreme Court in 2019.

The EC sources said while Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been demanding for machine-readable, digital copy of the electoral roll for the last seven months, such demand by the Congress is "not new".

"Rather, it forms part of a strategy by the political party for well over eight years, a fact that appears to have been selectively obscured in the present representation," an EC source pointed out.

The EC sources said the demand reiterated by Gandhi, albeit consistent with the position historically maintained by the Congress, is "not tenable within the contours of the prevailing legal framework".

They pointed out that the issue was already agitated by the Congress before the Supreme Court in a writ petition in 2018 filed by Kamal Nath, the then president of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee.

It appears that Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, may not have been appropriately apprised of the finality with which the matter stands concluded in judicial record, they said.

Referring to the Supreme Court's verdict in Kamal Nath vs Election Commission of India, (2019), the sources said that top court had observed that it found force in the submission of EC.

Clause 11.2.2.2 of the Election Manual uses the expression "text mode". The draft electoral roll in text mode has been supplied to the petitioner, the apex court had said.

"The clause nowhere says that the draft electoral roll has to be put up on the Chief Electoral Officer's website in a 'searchable PDF'. Therefore, the petitioner cannot claim, as a right, that the draft electoral roll should be placed on the website in a 'searchable mode'. It has only to be in 'text mode' and it is so provided," the apex court had observed.

The Congress on Wednesday urged the EC to provide machine-readable digital copy of the Maharashtra voters' list along with video footage of polling day of the state and Haryana within a week.

The Congress and Gandhi have consistently accused the poll authority of fudging voter data to help the BJP.

Gandhi has alleged that the Maharashtra assembly polls held last year were rigged.

The poll authority has denied the allegations, saying elections are strictly held under electoral laws passed by Parliament.