New Delhi: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday said allegations of double voting were baseless, noting that “when the evidence was asked, no answer came.”

He added, “The ECI is not intimidated by anyone. When politics is being done through the ECI, then the ECI wants to make it clear, that the ECI without any fear, is standing with all the poor, rich, senior citizens, women, youths, all the sections of the society, the ECI has been standing with them like a rock, will always be so.”

Kumar, speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, also addressed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s accusation of “vote chori” (vote theft). He said that instances of multiple voter IDs had arisen “knowingly or unknowingly” due to migration and other factors, and that the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was aimed at correcting such discrepancies.

His remark came during the press conference convened by ECI on Sunday to respond to grave allegations levelled by Congress and Opposition parties.

Kumar also defended the Commission’s decision not to share machine-readable voter rolls with political parties, citing a Supreme Court ruling that warned of voter privacy breaches. He stressed that objections must be filed through the proper legal route under Rule 20(3)(b) of the Registration of Electors Rules, which requires a sworn statement before the electoral registration officer.

“We have to understand the difference between a machine-readable voter list and a searchable voter list. You can search the voter list available on the Election Commission website by entering the EPIC number. You can also download it. This is not called machine-readable. Regarding machine-readable, in 2019, the Supreme Court also studied this subject in depth and found that giving a machine-readable electoral roll can violate the privacy of the voter... The machine-readable voter list is prohibited. This decision of the Election Commission is after the judgment of the Supreme Court and is from 2019...,” he said.

The CEC further clarified that only Indian citizens have the constitutional right to vote. “If foreign nationals have filled out the enumeration form, then during the SIR process, they will have to prove their nationality by submitting documents. Their names will be removed after investigation,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Gandhi, during his ‘Vote Adhikaar Yatra’ in Sasaram, had called the SIR exercise a “conspiracy” by the Election Commission to cut genuine votes and add fake ones. “Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha elections are being stolen in the entire country… We will not let them steal this election,” he told supporters.