Political parties, persons raising concerns over past voter rolls outside due process: EC

The Election Commission on Saturday said that political parties or individuals who had concerns about electoral rolls prepared in the past should have raised them during the claims and objections period.

The poll body did not name any political party or person in the statement.

It added that if problems with the voter rolls had been flagged “at the right time through the right channels”, any “genuine” mistakes would have been corrected by the sub-divisional magistrate or electoral registration officer.

“It seems that some political parties and their booth-level agents did not examine the electoral rolls at the appropriate time and did not point out errors, if any, to [the sub-divisional magistrate, electoral registration officer, district election officer or chief electoral officer],” the commission said in a statement.

On August 7, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that his party had spent six months examining the electoral rolls in Mahadevapura Assembly segment of the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency and found discrepancies in more than one lakh names.

He alleged that this was evidence of the Election Commission having colluded with the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In its statement on Saturday, the commission said political parties were now raising concerns outside the designated process.

“After the publication of the draft electoral rolls, digital and physical copies of the...

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