25 lakh bogus voters on Gujarat electoral rolls: Congress

AHMEDABAD - Claiming it had detected at least 25 lakh “bogus voters” in Gujarat’s electoral rolls, the Congress said Tuesday this had put in doubt the fairness of the 2007 state assembly elections and the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

State party chief Siddhartha Patel, and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Shaktisinh Gohil told media persons here that “such large numbers cannot constitute a genuine mistake on the part of the state election commission but was for all purposes, a deliberate attempt of the state administration to impact the voters list and consequently the outcome of the elections”.

“The rolls are prepared by state government employees who are amenable to pressure,” Patel added.

According to him, at least 7,000 to 9,000 “bogus voters” had been added in each of the assembly constituencies by using various methods. “The fact that 48 of the total 182 seats of the Gujarat Vidhan Sabha were won by a margin of less than 5,000 votes and another 61 by less than 7,000 votes is indicative of the seriousness of the issue at stake,” Patel added.

Similarly in the last parliamentary elections also, the difference of the votes polled by the candidates of the state’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in all the 26 Lok Sabha constituencies was only 5.49 lakh votes more than those polled by the Congress in the state, he said.

“If the bogus votes, estimated at 25 lakh, are deducted, the outcome in many of the parliamentary constituencies could have been different,” he said.