Mumbai: The Opposition lashed out at the exclusion of 2 crore votes in the draft SIR list in Maharashtra, with Congress MP Rahul Gandhi alleging this meant the 39 lakh voters added before the assembly polls in 2024 was vote theft.“Maharashtra 2024 – Suddenly 3.9 million voters were added between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. I said it then and I say it today. This was vote-theft,” he said on X.“And now in Maharashtra, 2.07 crore voters have been removed from the draft list – that’s every fifth voter. Which list was correct?,” he stated.“The BJP and the ‘Vote Theft Commission’ keep changing their tactics and they will continue to do so – the goal remains just one: BJP’s victory at any cost, and the end of India’s democracy.”Congress MP Pawan Khera added on X, “Either the electoral rolls for the 2024 Maharashtra assembly election were flawless – in which case the SIR has led to wrongful deletions. Or those rolls were questionable – in which case Fadnavis is heading an illegitimate government.”“But either way, one conclusion is inescapable. The integrity of India’s election has been compromised. And Gyanesh Gupta is the culprit.”NCP (SP) leader Rohit Pawar said on X, “There is a Damocles sword hanging on those with unmapped and anomalies statuses as well. In Maharashtra a large number of eligible citizen’s names have been excluded. We suspect that a significant number of duplicate voters have been included in this list published after the SIR process.”Anti-corruption activist Anjali Damania tweeted, “Every fifth voter in the state has been tossed out of the list. This has happened most severely in Pune, Thane and the Mumbai suburbs – places where the population of labourers, migrants and slumdwellers. This does not seem like a coincidence.”Damania said the sudden disappearance of 2 crore voter’s names from the list is “not merely an administrative blunder; it is a massive assault on democracy”. She demanded an independent inquiry and an extension of the period to file objections.
