Staff Reporter | New Delhi
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a sharp attack on the Election Commission (EC), accusing it of destroying crucial evidence instead of offering transparency. His remarks came in response to the EC’s recent directive instructing its officers to delete CCTV, webcast, and video footage of the election process 45 days after polling — if no legal challenge has been filed.
In a post on X, Gandhi wrote:
“Voter list? Not in machine-readable format. CCTV footage? Hidden through changes in the law. Photos and videos from elections? Now to be deleted in 45 days instead of one year. The very institution meant to answer questions — is now erasing the evidence.”
He added, “It’s obvious the match is fixed. And a fixed election is poison for democracy.”
Gandhi’s statement followed an official EC instruction dated May 30 to state Chief Electoral Officers, directing that all such recordings — unless part of an ongoing court case — be discarded after 45 days. The Congress leader has long demanded access to polling data, including video and voter records, especially in light of alleged irregularities in Maharashtra’s Assembly elections.
In its letter, the EC explained that while photography, videography, CCTV, and webcasting have been used to document different stages of the electoral process, they are not mandated by law and are considered internal tools for process management.
However, the Commission said it had reviewed the policy due to the “recent misuse of such content by non-contesting individuals, who have used selective and out-of-context clips on social media to spread misinformation and malicious narratives, which do not lead to any legitimate legal outcomes.”
An EC source said, “Public sharing of such footage, which may allow easy identification of voters, risks exposing them — whether they voted or abstained — to coercion, discrimination, or intimidation by anti-social elements.”
The Commission also noted that releasing such video materials would violate the provisions of the Representation of the People Act as well as Supreme Court directions on maintaining the secrecy and sanctity of the ballot.
Notably, in December last year, the central government amended election rules to restrict public access to certain electronic materials such as CCTV footage, webcasts, and candidate videos, citing concerns over misuse.
As per the new rules, if no election petition is filed in court within 45 days of the result announcement, all such visual data may be deleted. However, if a legal challenge is filed, the data must be preserved and made available to the judiciary as required.