On Tuesday, sources from the Election Commission dismissed Rahul Gandhi's claims about unusual voter turnout in the last two hours of the Maharashtra assembly elections. They pointed out that the Congress party had not raised any concerns about such irregularities during or after the voting process.

On Monday, while in Boston, US, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, claimed that more people voted in the Maharashtra assembly elections than the total number of adults in the state. "The Election Commission gave us a voting figure for 5:30 pm, and between 5:30 pm and 7:30 pm, 65 lakh voters voted. This is physically impossible. For a voter to vote, it takes approximately three minutes and, if you do the math, it would mean that there were lines of voters till 2 am, but this did not happen," he had said. Rejecting the claims, sources clarified that a total of 6,40,87,588 (6.40 crore) voters cast their votes at polling stations between 7 am and 6 pm during the Maharashtra elections. On average, about 58 lakh votes were cast every hour, they added.

Based on the average trend, approximately 1.16 crore voters are estimated to have voted in the last two hours. "Therefore, casting of 65 lakh votes by electors in two hours is much below the average hourly voting trend," an Election Commission (EC) functionary pointed out. The sources mentioned that voting took place with polling agents officially appointed by candidates or political parties at each polling booth. The Congress' nominated candidates or their authorised agents did not make "any substantiated allegations" regarding any unusual voting during the scrutiny process carried out by returning officers and election observers the following day. Regarding the claim of tampering with electoral data, the sources explained that voter lists in India, including Maharashtra, were prepared in accordance with the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.

According to the law, a special summary revision of electoral rolls is carried out either just before elections or once every year. The final version of the electoral rolls is then provided to all national or state political parties. After the electoral rolls for the Maharashtra elections were finalised, there were 9,77,90,752 (9.72 crore) registered voters. Out of this, only 89 appeals were filed with the first appellate authority, the district magistrate, and just one appeal was made to the second appellate authority, the state chief electoral officer.

 "Therefore, it is amply clear that there was no grievance of the Congress or any other political party before the conduct of the Maharashtra assembly election in 2024," the functionary said. During the voter list revision, more than one lakh polling booths were covered. In addition to the 97,325 booth-level officers appointed by electoral registration officers, political parties also appointed 1,03,727 booth-level agents. Among these, Congress appointed 27,099 booth-level agents. "Therefore, these unsubstantiated allegations raised against the electoral rolls of Maharashtra are an affront to the rule of the law," the functionary asserted.