Opposition parties led by Congress on Friday mounted pressure on the Election Commission seeking a centralised data of voters’ list of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 and the assembly polls 2024 as they went on to allege irregularities in the Maharashtra assembly polls.

While the Nirvachan Sadan said they would respond to the matter, the Opposition parties — Congress, Shiv Sena-UBT and NCP-SP threatened to approach the judiciary if their demands are not met.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi claimed there were more registered voters than the entire state’s adult population, and that more voters were added in five months between the Lok Sabha and state polls than in the five years before that.

“ECI considers political parties as priority stakeholders, of course the voters being the prime & deeply values views, suggestions, questions coming from political parties. Commission would respond in writing with full factual and procedural matrix uniformly adopted across the country,” ECI said in its first reaction to the Opposition’s allegations.

BJP termed the allegations “baseless and frivolous” and said it is nothing more than the “whining of a sore loser”. BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Maharashtra Bhagwat Karad said people gave their mandate to the ‘Mahayuti’ in the assembly polls due to the work done by its government in the state and the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said in a social media post as what does Rahul Gandhi gain by levelling such false and frivolous allegations against constitutional institutions like the Election Commission of India.

Addressing a joint Press conference with Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Sanjay Raut and NCP (SP)’s Supriya Sule, Rahul also alleged that names of many voters have been deleted or transferred ahead of the assembly polls and most of these were from Dalit, tribal and minority communities.

Congress, the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP (Sharad Pawar) have been raising the issues of irregularities over the polls held in November last year in which the BJP-led Mahayuti won a massive mandate.

While Raut said if the poll panel is alive and its conscience is not dead, it should answer questions posed by Rahul Gandhi otherwise it will be construed that EC is slave to the government, Sule pointed out that even after winning the election from Malshiras, her party’s MLA Uttam Jankar wanted that voting should be done through ballot paper and re-election should be held, but the process was stopped by sending police there.

Rahul said the Opposition parties in Maharashtra suspect that the number of deletions are much more than the number of additions.

“What we’ve found regarding the Maharashtra elections raises several questions for the Election Commission. Between the 2019 Vidhan Sabha elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, 32 lakh voters were added to Maharashtra’s electoral rolls over five years. However, between the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the 2024 Vidhan Sabha elections, 39 lakh new voters were added in just five months,” the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha claimed.

“Why were more voters added after the Lok Sabha elections? Who are these 39 lakh individuals? Notably, 39 lakh voters are equivalent to the entire voter population of Himachal Pradesh, added in a remarkably short period,” he said. Why did the EC add more voters in Maharashtra in five months than it did in five years, Rahul sought to understand. .

Pointing out that Maharashtra’s adult population is 9.54 crore while the voter population in the assembly polls was 9.7 crore, Rahul asked why there were more registered voters in the assembly elections 2024 than the entire adult population of Maharashtra.

“Another concern is that there are more registered voters in Maharashtra than the state’s actual voting population. According to the government, Maharashtra’s adult population is 9.54 crore. Yet, the Election Commission reports more voters in Maharashtra than its adult population. This discrepancy raises questions about how these voters were created,” the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said.

He claimed majority of the voters added have gone in the BJP’s favour as the opposition parties have maintained their vote share in the assembly polls. He also pointed out that the number of voters who voted for the three opposition parties has not decreased between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections.

“We have been asking the Election Commission for the voters’ list of both the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. Why is the Election Commission not responding to our request,” he asked. “It is EC’s responsibility to establish transparency... Opposition parties that fought the Maharashtra polls together are making the demand of voters’ list and the EC must provide it,” he asserted.