The Congress submitted a formal memorandum to the Chief Election Commissioner of the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday (November 29), demanding an explanation regarding electoral discrepancies and to grant the party an urgent in-person hearing to raise all such issues in detail.

The first issue raised by the Congress memorandum is about the arbitrary deletion of voters and subsequent addition of over 10,000 voters in each constituency in Maharashtra from the final voter lists.

The second issue raised by the memorandum is the “inexplicable increase in voting percentages from 5 pm to the final voter percentage declared by this ECI at 11:30 pm on the day of polling”.

“It is pertinent to note statements by the former Chief Election Commissioner of India S Y Qureshi, who has gone on record to state that the voter data made available on the date of polling is recorded and updated in real time, and therefore there is no logical explanation about what has transpired in Maharashtra. We would also request that the ECI grant us an urgent in-person hearing to raise all our issues in detail,” the memorandum stated.

The Congress memorandum signed by senior Congress leaders Nana Patole, Ramesh Chennithala and Mukul Wasnik stated that doubts are being raised by many quarters about the 7.83 per cent increase in votes.

“According to the data released by the Election Commission, there should be long queues at the polling station after 5 pm on the day of voting. How many constituencies in the state had long queues of voters after 5 pm? The ECI must make the video footage of long queues public,” the memorandum stated.

“As per official data released by the Election Commission, 65.2 per cent polling was recorded till 11.30 pm on November 20. The next day, at 3 pm on November 21, the official figure was 66.05%. Where did the difference of 1.03% come from in the data officially released by the Election Commission itself. How did 9,99,359 votes increase in a single day,” the memorandum asked.

“Looking at the difference in the percentage of votes, this seems serious and worrisome. If there are doubts in the minds of the people about this increase in votes, it is the duty of the ECI to remove them. The ECI itself should come forward and clarify its stand with evidence and give satisfactory answers to the doubts in the minds of the people,” the memorandum stated.

The Congress memorandum raised the issue of “the arbitrary deletion of voters and subsequent addition of over 10,000 voters in each constituency of Maharashtra, from the final voter lists.

“In the days leading upto the polling day, the Congress and its allies received several on ground-level reports about different means being adopted by the ruling regime to commit large scale electoral fraud across assembly constituencies in Maharashtra. One these included instances of arbitrary deletion of voters from the voter list and consequent insertion of roughly 10,000 voters per constituency across Maharashtra.

“With this exercise of unchecked and arbitrary deletion and consequent insertion of voters, Maharashtra witnessed an unprecedented increase of an estimated 47 lakh voters being added to the electoral roll from between July 2024 and November 2024. It is significant to note that out of the 50 assembly constituencies where there was an average increase of 50,000 voters, the ruling regime and its allies secured victory from 47 of these constituencies,” the memorandum stated.

“On a prima facie reading, these data points demonstrate that there has been a significant and inexplicable increase in the number of registered voters across Maharashtra and there also has been an exercise of deletion and addition of names in voters lists, all of which conveniently worked to the advantage of the incumbent (BJP-backed Mahayuti) government,” the memorandum stated.

The memorandum mentioned that the issue was duly raised by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on October 19 before ECI, but no cogent action was taken by the ECI.

“Instances of electoral fraud and voter lists manipulation highlighted by the MVA stands duly corroborated by the fact that on October 17, a Voter Registration Officer of the Tuljapur assembly constituency registered an FIR before the Dharashiv cyper police station reporting a large number of fake voter registrations between October 2 and October 16.

“As per the complainant, fake Aadhar cards were created by individuals with differing photos and names as well as fake addresses. In fact, upon further scrutiny by the complaint, it was found that these individuals were never found at their provided residences,” the memorandum stated.

The other issue raised by the memorandum was the “inexplicable increase in voting percentages from 5 pm to the final voter percentage declared by this ECI at 11:30 pm on the day of polling”.

“Several glaring discrepancies have been reported in the voter turnout data for during the Maharashtra legislative assembly elections. There has been an inexplicable and an unprecedented increase in voter percentages from the seemingly provisional percentage declared by the ECI at 5 pm and the final voter percentage declared at 11:30 pm on the day of polling.

“As per data made available by the ECI, the polling percentage across Maharashtra at 5 pm was 58.22 percent. Later, on the same day at 11.30 pm, this was reported to be 65.02 percent. Further, there was another increase in voting percentage, ultimately being reported as 66.05%, several hours prior to counting, As per voter data provided by ECI, between 5 pm and the close timing of polling which is 6 pm on October 21, approximately 76 lakh votes were cast. Further, there was yet another hike of approximately 10 lakh voters only hours prior to the counting of votes on October 23,” the memorandum stated.

“The discrepancy raises several questions about the manner in which the electoral process was conducted across Maharashtra. From a common sense viewpoint, more than 70 lakh votes being cast in the closing hours of polling is implausible and unheard of in electoral history. Even assuming the time taken by one individual to cast their vote is two minutes, it is impossible for the ECI to have even come out with the final data by 11:30 pm, considering that 76 lakh voters exercised their franchise within the last hour of polling.

“These instances, which are corroborated with numerical data published by the ECI, raises concerns about the conduct of free and fair elections in Maharashtra. These doubts are further strengthened by the lack of any cogent response by the ECI addressing these doubts,” the memorandum stated.