NEW DELHI: Congress has alleged large-scale duplicate voters in Rajasthan , demanding that the Election Commission weed them out else they will influence the assembly elections to be held later in the year. Also, the party alleged there was an unnatural increase of 70 lakh voters in the state between 2014-18.

A high-level Congress delegation of former chief minister Ashok Gehlot , state unit chief Sachin Pilot and AICC legal cell chief Vivek Tankha met the CEC and submitted a memorandum listing complaints in an affidavit, and seeking action. According to Tankha, the party has submitted an analysis of 200 assembly constituencies from the Election Commission website, having found that 42 lakh voters had same address and parents, while there were many voters with same election ID numbers.

While urging the EC to act, Congress sources said the party too will soon undertake a booth-wise scrutiny of voters’ list to ensure strict oversight over the revision process. Speaking to reporters after meeting the CEC, the Congress leaders said, “Increase in the number of voters is 70 lakh. It seems improbable that over five years, so many new voters would increase in a state. And the redundancies and duplications that we have found on the Election Commission website, are very well illustrated in the affidavit filed.”

Pilot said as per Congress’s analysis of the voters’ list, 45 lakh voters need to be verified. “Whether they are fake or not, authentic or not, that is the job of the EC,” he said.

