New Delhi, Dec 10 (PTI) The Congress' data analytics department chairperson Praveen Chakravarty on Tuesday wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, seeking assembly-wise voter rolls in excel sheet format for the Lok Sabha elections and the assembly polls in Maharashtra.
Chakravarty also sought booth-wise Form 20 data in excel sheet format for the two recent elections.
In his letter, Chakravarty said, "Thank you once again for the time that you and your team gave to the delegation from the Indian National Congress on December 3 regarding the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections."
"You may recall that we had presented data showing an abnormal increase in the total number of new voters enrolled and votes polled in the Vidhan Sabha elections compared to the Lok Sabha elections held just six months before. Forty lakh new voters were enrolled and 75 lakh extra votes were polled in the Vidhan Sabha elections vis-a-vis the Lok Sabha (polls)," he said.
This 4.3 per cent increase in voters enrolled and 13 per cent in votes polled are unusually high compared to previous election cycles in Maharashtra or other states under similar election cycles, the Congress leader pointed out.
"We had also presented a list of 118 constituencies in Maharashtra where 25,000 or more extra votes were cast versus the Lok Sabha elections and the BJP alliance had won 102 in the Vidhan Sabha versus just 58 in the Lok Sabha elections," he said.
As agreed in that meeting, "we await further data from the commission", Chakravarty said.
"On behalf of the Indian National Congress, I sincerely request that the following data be made public at the earliest. Maharashtra assembly-wise voter rolls in excel format for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Maharashtra assembly-wise voter rolls in excel format for the 2024 Vidhan Sabha elections. Booth-wise Form 20 data in excel format for the 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections," he said.
"We look forward to strengthening India's democracy collaboratively through enhanced transparency and integrity of our election process," Chakravarty said.
A Congress delegation met Election Commission (EC) officials last week and raised concerns over alleged inconsistencies in the electoral process for the Maharashtra Assembly polls, including the issue of large numbers of deletions and additions in the voters' list.
The opposition party had sought raw data from the poll panel to ascertain facts.
The Congress delegation, including Rajya Sabha MPs Abhishek Singhvi, Mukul Wasnik, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole, Gurdeep Singh Sappal and Chakravarty, had met the EC officials and explained the party's concerns over the polls.
The Congress on November 29 raised with the EC "serious and grave inconsistencies" that it said were being revealed in the data relating to the polling and counting processes for the Maharashtra polls and sought an in-person hearing to present relevant evidence.
In a memorandum to the poll panel, AICC Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala, Patole and AICC general secretary Wasnik had said "these glaring inconsistencies", which struck at the very root of a transparent, free and fair electoral system, were not based on any biased motive or farfetched presumptions but had been extracted from the information made publicly available by the EC.
In the memorandum, the Congress leaders had said, "In fact, questions relating to Maharashtra's voter data have also been raised by a former Chief Election Commissioner, hence we are bringing the same to the attention of this commission."
"In the days leading up to the polling day, the Indian National Congress and its allies received several ground-level reports about different means being adopted by the ruling regime to commit large-scale electoral fraud across the assembly constituencies in Maharashtra," the memorandum said.
The Congress leaders said these included instances of arbitrary deletion of names from the voters' list and consequent insertion of roughly 10,000 voters per constituency across Maharashtra.
Recovering from its Lok Sabha elections losses, the BJP bagged 132 constituencies, the highest among all constituents of the Mahayuti. Its allies the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar's NCP bagged 57 and 41 seats, respectively.
The Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) suffered a setback.
The grand old party registered one of its worst performances in the state polls, winning only 16 seats. Sharad Pawar's NCP(SP) got 10 seats while Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena (UBT) won 20.