42 lakh fake voters in Rajasthan, claims Congress

The Congress on Tuesday moved the Election Commission alleging exponential growth in the number of voters in Rajasthan between 2013 and 2018 suspecting at least 42 lakh 'fake' voters on the electoral rolls in the state which goes to polls in December.

A delegation of Congress leaders including Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot, C P Joshi among others met Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat and demanded that the poll authority “sanitise” the voters' list by removing duplications, omissions and other irregularities.

Addressing a press conference here, senior Congress leader Vivek Tankha claimed that an analysis of the voters' list by the party had found that 70 lakh new voters were added to the list between 2013 and 2018 which was more than the average annual growth.

Tankha claimed that an analysis of the voters' list showed as many as 42.08 lakh probable duplicate voters with the same name, relative name and gender.

Making a case for sanitising the list, Gehlot said every vote was valuable as his colleague C P Joshi had lost the assembly election in 2008 by a single vote.

The Congress had raised doubts over the voters' list in Madhya Pradesh earlier this year claiming the presence of 65 lakh “fake” voters. Tankha said the EC had then termed his claims as “unsubstantiated” but later deleted 25 lakh voters from the electoral rolls.

Tankha said a Congress activist and lawyer Vikas Jain had submitted a sworn affidavit to the Election Commission on the irregularities in the Rajasthan voters' list and was ready to face action if his claims were proved untrue.

Congress leaders demanded that the EC direct the chief electoral officer and the block level officials to conduct physical verification in light of the inconsistencies brought out in the list.