- Singhar claims 16 lakh new voters registered in 60 days
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh’s Leader of the Opposition, Umang Singhar, held a press conference on Tuesday to raise alarming concerns over what he calls “vote-theft” and a lack of transparency by the Election Commission of India (ECI). Singhar presented data-based graphics and tables showing significant voter list irregularities, which he alleges gave the BJP an unfair advantage in the recent assembly elections.
Data reveals unprecedented voter surge
Singhar highlighted a suspicious spike in voter registration. Between January 5 and August 2, a seven-month period, voter numbers increased by approximately 4.64 lakh. However, in just the two months that followed, from August 2 to October 4, an astounding 16.05 lakh new voters were added—an average of 26,000 per day.
He also presented data on 27 constituencies where Congress candidates lost by a narrow margin. In these same areas, the number of new voters far exceeded the margin of defeat, suggesting the surge was orchestrated to benefit the ruling party.
Blatant disregard for rules
Singhar further accused the ECI of a deliberate cover-up. He shared a June 9, 2023, directive from the ECI ordering state Chief Electoral Officers to withhold voter data from January to June 2023, a move he says obstructed a transparent audit. He also pointed to a December 2022 order from the Madhya Pradesh State Election Commission to remove over 8.5 lakh duplicate entries, noting that no public report was ever released on whether this was completed.
The Congress leader questioned the ECI’s double standards on privacy, arguing that while the commission uses privacy as an excuse to not include photos in voter lists, the government has no issue publicizing photos of beneficiaries for its schemes. He also criticized the ECI for being uncooperative and for what he described as a “political” defense of their actions, stating that their response to concerns felt more like a political briefing than a neutral explanation.
Key demands for election integrity
To restore public trust, Singhar put forth a list of demands, including:
Freezing the Final Roll: The final voter list should be signed by all political parties and locked to prevent any changes until the election is over.
Releasing Machine-Readable Data: Voter data should be released in a CSV or Excel format instead of as image-based PDFs, enabling independent verification.
Publishing Photos with Entries: Each voter entry should include a photo to easily identify and remove duplicate or fraudulent entries.
Making a Full Log Public: A complete log of all voter list modifications, including all relevant forms, should be published online.
