One lakh voters 'deleted' in Ahmedabad by SEC: Guj Cong

To substantiate their claims, Congress issued two official documents of SEC, having total number of voters in Ahmedabad before and after the voting.

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat Congress on Monday alleged that over one lakh voters in Ahmedabad have failed to exercise their franchise as their names were "deleted" overnight by the State Election Commission (SEC) ahead of the polls to six municipal corporations held yesterday.

However, SEC refuted these allegations by saying no voters' name was deleted by them as claimed by the Congress.

To substantiate their claims, Congress today issued two official documents of SEC, having total number of voters in Ahmedabad before and after the voting took place yesterday.

According to the official release issued by SEC on November 20, Ahmedabad was having 39.83 lakh registered voters, said Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi, quoting the release issued by SEC.

"However, as per the final figures of voter turn out released yesterday after the polls, SEC stated that there were 38.79 lakh voters in the city (Ahmedabad). This clearly shows that over one lakh voters were removed from the final list just before the polls took place yesterday," Doshi alleged.

The party also alleged instead of working as an independent body, SEC has been functioning as part of ruling BJP and engaged in such acts to help BJP in the election.

"SEC has failed to exercise their duties as a constitutional body and worked at the behest of BJP. Deleting one lakh voters overnight is a conspiracy which has to be investigated and culprits should be punished. SEC deprived these voters from exercising their fundamental right to vote" Doshi added.

To raise this issue, a delegation of Congress leaders, led by state party president Bharatsinh Solanki, will meet the officials of SEC in Gandhinagar tomorrow.

"To see that such mischief does not get repeated in upcoming polls on municipalities, district and taluka panchayat, our delegation will meet SEC officials tomorrow to make a representation," added Doshi.