'Crossed all limits of shamelessness': Congress questions EC over refusal to share machine-readable rolls; poll body says parties failed to flag errors on time

NEW DELHI: Congress party on Saturday launched a sharp attack on the Election Commission, accusing it of having "crossed all limits of shamelessness" and failing in its constitutional duty. The party demanded that the poll body explain why it continues to deny political parties access to machine-readable electoral rolls and CCTV footage.“The ECI has crossed all limits of shamelessness by shrugging all its responsibilities in the face of grave allegations of vote theft and mass rigging. Constitutional authorities are expected to be the epitome of probity - not hide behind vaguely drafted press notes to hide their guilt in destroying democracy,” Congress general secretary K C Venugopal said in a post on X.Venugopal said that the burden of identifying large-scale discrepancies in voter data cannot be placed solely on political parties and their booth-level agents. He questioned the commission’s claims of “utmost transparency” in electoral roll preparation and listed several concerns, including denial of machine-readable rolls, deletion of CCTV footage within 45 days, the EC’s submission before the Supreme Court regarding the deletion of 65 lakh names in Bihar, and its refusal to meet opposition MPs.Sharing the EC’s recent press note, he said, “The tone and tenor of this press note raises greater suspicions that the ECI will take no steps to address the public’s grave concerns about mass scale vote rigging done by the BJP-controlled ECI.”Responding to opposition allegations, the election commission said the appropriate time for political parties to flag errors is during the claims and objections period after draft electoral rolls are published. “It seems that some political parties and their booth level agents (BLAs) did not examine the electoral rolls at the appropriate time and did not point out errors, if any,” the EC said in its statement.The commission also noted that certain parties and individuals have recently raised questions about errors in both current and past electoral rolls.