Shillong: The Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) has raised the alarm about potential “vote theft” in the state, citing a six-month investigation into voter rolls in Mahadevapura, Bengaluru.
The party warned that similar manipulation could undermine democracy in Meghalaya’s closely contested constituencies.
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A 40-member Congress party team found 1,00,250 suspicious or incorrect entries out of approximately 6.5 lakh voters in Mahadevapura. The party stressed that such errors could be decisive in narrow-margin elections.
MPCC secretary Manuel Badwar emphasized that this is not a partisan issue but a fundamental matter of electoral integrity. He stated that the principle of “one person, one vote” is at risk, and flawed voter lists make it impossible to trust election results.
Badwar argued that clean rolls are essential for both those in power and the opposition.
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The investigation, which combined official Election Commission of India (ECI) data with on-the-ground checks, uncovered several types of irregularities.
There were 11,965 instances of the same person registered in multiple polling booths, sometimes across different states.
Another 40,009 entries had unverifiable addresses like “House Number 0” or where fathers’ names were replaced with random letters. The team also found 10,452 voters linked to a few addresses, including 80 registered in a one-room house, 46 in a single bedroom, and 68 tied to a brewery.
Additionally, there were 4,132 entries with missing or invalid photographs and 33,692 cases where Form 6, intended for new voters aged 18-23, was used to add elderly individuals, sometimes multiple times.
Badwar warned that even a small number of false entries in districts like East and West Khasi Hills, Ri-Bhoi, Jaintia Hills, and the Garo Hills could neutralize genuine votes and swing an election.
He noted that manipulation is often targeted to shift just enough votes to change an outcome without arousing immediate suspicion.
The MPCC’s report also criticized the limited public access to electoral data, which is often available only as unsearchable printouts. The party noted that the ECI withholds polling-day CCTV footage, making meaningful audits impossible without machine-readable data and access to video evidence.
According to the report, these issues have direct consequences for voters, including the cancellation of legitimate votes by duplicates, the padding of rolls with registrations for empty houses, and the exclusion of genuine young voters.
To address these concerns, the MPCC has urged the ECI to take several actions. These include releasing machine-readable, booth-wise voter rolls for the past decade, publishing complete logs of all additions and deletions to the rolls, and making statutory forms searchable with timestamps.
The party also called for the secure release of polling-day CCTV footage, a public explanation when footage is missing, and the naming and taking action against officials responsible for errors.
The MPCC further sought a court-monitored Special Intensive Revision in high-risk areas, random address checks for bulk-voter clusters, and cross-state de-duplication of voter lists.
The party also demanded the establishment of a national helpdesk and online portal for voters to check their entries, flag errors, and track corrections with a right to appeal.
Badwar concluded by stating that democratic erosion often happens gradually through unchecked irregularities. He said that for Meghalaya, safeguarding the integrity of the electoral roll is the crucial first step to protecting the legitimacy of future elections.