A day after the Congress urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to provide machine-readable digital copy of the Maharashtra voters' list, ECI sources on Thursday (June 26, 2025) said the demand is "not tenable" under the prevailing legal framework, asserting that a similar plea of the party was junked by the Supreme Court in 2019.
The ECI sources said while Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been demanding for machine-readable, digital copy of the electoral roll for the last seven months, such demand by the Congress is "not new".
Had invited Rahul Gandhi for talks on voter roll issue, says Election Commission
“Rather, it forms part of a strategy by the political party for well over eight years, a fact that appears to have been selectively obscured in the present representation,” an ECI source pointed out.
The ECI sources said the demand reiterated by Mr. Gandhi, albeit consistent with the position historically maintained by the Congress, is "not tenable within the contours of the prevailing legal framework".
