The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee has mounted a sharp offensive against the Election Commission of India, alleging unprecedented discrepancies and systemic tampering in the electoral rolls of the Pilibhit Sadar Assembly constituency. Addressing a press briefing in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh Congress in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam claimed that between July and September, the identities of 13,150 legitimate voters were altered in the electoral rolls while retaining their original Elector’s Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers. The opposition party asserted that this silent modification directly threatens voter franchise, effectively disenfranchising thousands of citizens when they arrive at polling booths on election day.

The EPIC Anomaly: How Names Were Changed While Voter IDs Remained Intact

According to the documentation presented by the Congress leadership, the alleged manipulations occurred following the publication of the final draft under the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. Party leaders pointed out that while a citizen’s unique alphanumeric EPIC number remained unaltered on paper, the corresponding personal name and family identifiers linked to that record were replaced with entirely different identities. Under this arrangement, an authentic voter presenting their physical identity card at a designated polling station would find a completely unrelated name printed in the polling register, creating an automatic procedural ground for presiding officers to deny them a ballot.

Discrepancies Beyond Altered Names: Ghost Entries and Deletions

Congress in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam detailed that the alterations in Pilibhit Sadar extended far beyond name replacements, creating irregularities across roughly 16,000 voter records in a single assembly segment. In addition to the 13,150 altered identities, party investigators claimed that nearly 804 valid voter entries were struck off the registers entirely without following statutory verification procedures. Concurrently, over 2,600 non-resident or unverified names were allegedly added into the localized rolls. The party questioned how such sweeping modifications could be executed on a verified electoral register after the formal publication of the SIR draft without administrative collusion.

Algorithmic Profiling and Demographic Pattern Allegations

Joining the briefing, Congress national spokesperson and social media chairperson Supriya Shrinate described the exercise as coordinated electoral engineering executed through centralized software adjustments. Shrinate stated that out of the total 3,48,937 registered electors in Pilibhit Sadar, the localized changes predominantly targeted male voters and specific minority concentrations. Warning citizens that similar discrepancies could be underway across other constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, Shrinate urged all electors and grassroots workers to run their EPIC numbers against the official digital portal to confirm that their verified details have not been swapped.

Legal Challenge and Demand for Judicial Scrutiny

Uttar Pradesh Congress Legislative Party Leader Aradhana Mishra stated that the party will escalate the issue through administrative, judicial, and public avenues. Reaffirming that the party is seeking formal legal counsel, Congress leaders demanded that the Supreme Court of India intervene to order a comprehensive stay and independent audit of the Special Intensive Revision drive across the state. The party also called upon the district magistrate and electoral registration officers of Pilibhit to explain who authorized database edits post-draft finalization, while signaling intent to lodge formal complaints against senior election officials overseeing electoral databases and IT administration.

Administrative Response and Verification

Following the allegations, Pilibhit’s local electoral machinery initiated preliminary verifications. Electoral Registration Officer Hemant Kumar Chaudhary stated that the district administration and election authorities have deployed teams to scrutinize the database entries and verify the specific claims raised by the political party regarding the EPIC records in Pilibhit Sadar. The administration maintained that the continuous updating of electoral rolls adheres to standard statutory guidelines, with formal verification reports expected once the preliminary investigation concludes.