Rahul Gandhi questions 2024 poll legitimacy over voter deletions, warns CEC Gyanesh Kumar

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi has questioned the legitimacy of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, alleging that large-scale voter deletions had affected the outcome, during the INDIA bloc's symbolic public impeachment programme against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in New Delhi on Saturday.

Gandhi claimed that 13.3 crore voters, accounting for around 15% of India's electorate, had been deleted from electoral rolls. He contrasted this figure with the approximately 3% margin between Opposition candidates and those who won, arguing that the scale of the alleged deletions raised serious questions about the validity of the election.

"The Election Commission itself is stating that the 2024 Lok Sabha election is an illegal election, and the people who entered the Lok Sabha, the BJP people who entered the Lok Sabha, did so illegally," Gandhi said.

The Congress leader's remarks came as Opposition parties assembled at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's residence to hold a mock impeachment of the CEC. Gandhi said the gathering had been forced to take place in a garden because all other institutional avenues available to the Opposition had been closed.

He pointed out that the entire Opposition had come together at Kharge's residence to discuss the removal of the Chief Election Commissioner, suggesting that the symbolic exercise was a consequence of the lack of other avenues to raise their concerns.

Neha Bora warns CEC over changes to Form 6

Activist Neha Bora also addressed the gathering, accusing Gyanesh Kumar of changing Form 6 in a manner that could deprive young people of their voting rights.

Form 6 is used by eligible citizens to apply for inclusion in electoral rolls. Bora alleged that the changes introduced under the CEC's tenure were an attempt to make it more difficult for young people to register as voters.

"You (Gyanesh Kumar) won't just be impeached. You will be behind bars," she said during the Opposition's programme.

The controversy over Form 6 is part of the wider dispute between the Opposition and the Election Commission over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The Opposition has argued that changes to the form and the revision process could make it harder for eligible voters to secure or retain their place on the rolls.

Opposition's allegations and Election Commission's position

The INDIA bloc's public impeachment was a symbolic political exercise and not a formal constitutional impeachment proceeding. Earlier in the programme, Kharge listed six allegations against Kumar, including conspiring to steal elections, deleting 13.2 crore voters, changing Form 6 without parliamentary approval, centralising control of electoral rolls through the ECINET platform, keeping the other two Election Commissioners out of key decisions and acting at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The Election Commission, however, has maintained that the figures cited by the Opposition relate to voters marked as absent, shifted, dead or duplicate during the draft-stage revision of electoral rolls, and do not represent final deletions of eligible voters. The distinction has become a major point of contention in the ongoing dispute over the SIR exercise.

The Opposition has sought the removal of Kumar, an end to the SIR process and changes to the 2023 law governing the appointment and service conditions of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners. It has also demanded greater transparency in the revision of electoral rolls and safeguards to ensure that eligible citizens are not excluded.