Rahul Gandhi, during a recent press conference, focused on the issue of fraudulent voter identities, presented a case involving an individual named Aditya Srivastava, whose details he claimed reflected discrepancies in the electoral rolls of multiple Indian states. Gandhi displayed the Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number, facial photograph, and other identification information of Aditya Srivastava, asserting that this individual was not only listed as a voter in Karnataka but was also simultaneously registered in Uttar Pradesh, specifically in Lucknow. Furthermore, he alleged that the same person was additionally found to be listed on the voter roll in the state of Maharashtra, thus making it a case of triple voter registration.
However, when this claim was examined and fact-checked through the official website of the Election Commission of India, a different picture emerged. A search for the voter details of Aditya Srivastava using the provided EPIC number revealed that his name was registered only in the state of Karnataka, within the Mahadevapura Assembly constituency of Bengaluru Urban. On the other hand, when attempts were made to locate his name in the electoral rolls of Lucknow and Maharashtra using the same information, the website returned the message “No result found,” indicating that the individual was not presently registered in either of these two regions.
This discrepancy contradicted Rahul Gandhi’s assertion that Aditya Srivastava was a voter in three different states. While Gandhi had stated that Srivastava appeared four times in the electoral database—twice in Karnataka and once each in Lucknow and Maharashtra—the current voter records provide no such validation. As per the Election Commission’s website, the individual is now recorded as a voter solely in Karnataka, with no trace of voter registration found in either Lucknow or any constituency within Maharashtra.
The situation led to questions about how these alleged duplicate or multiple entries may have been removed. According to official records and public communications from the Election Commission, a systematic process was undertaken earlier in the year to eliminate discrepancies across electoral rolls in different states. The Election Commission had released a statement in March confirming that duplicate and multiple voter registrations had been identified and deleted from the system. This process was implemented to ensure that each eligible citizen was listed only once and in a single state, thereby reducing redundancy and preventing electoral malpractice.
Given this background, it appears that if Aditya Srivastava's name did at any point exist in the electoral rolls of Lucknow or Maharashtra, it might have been deleted as part of the Commission’s effort to correct irregularities in the voter database. However, as of now, according to all available digital records maintained by the Election Commission of India, no such entries exist for this individual in either of the aforementioned states.
Furthermore, the Chief Electoral Officer of Uttar Pradesh, through the state's official election office social media platform, issued a clarification refuting Rahul Gandhi’s claims. The statement clearly affirmed that Aditya Srivastava was officially registered as a voter in the Mahadevapura constituency of Bengaluru Urban district in Karnataka, and not in Lucknow as suggested during the press briefing.
After Rahul Gandhi’s public presentation and the exposure of the EPIC number, the fact that the Election Commission’s website yielded “No result found” for voter registration in both Maharashtra and Lucknow casts doubt on the authenticity of the claims made. The incident has drawn attention to the importance of verifying information before presenting it publicly, especially when the matter involves sensitive electoral data and the credibility of democratic processes.
