'Incorrect': UP poll panel rejects Rahul's charge; says Aditya Srivastava, Vishal Singh not registered as voters in Uttar Pradesh

NEW DELHI: The chief electoral officer (CEO) of Uttar Pradesh on Thursday rejected Rahul Gandhi's claim that Aditya Srivastava and Vishal Singh, mentioned by the Lok Sabha LoP during his "poll theft" press conference against the Election Commission (ECI), are registered voters in several states, including Uttar Pradesh, besides Karnataka."It is being claimed that Aditya Srivastava is registered as a voter in Mumbai, Bengaluru (two booths) and Lucknow. Vishal Singh is shown as a voter in Bengaluru (two booths) and Varanasi," the Uttar Pradesh CEO said in a statement on X.Inspection of their respective EPIC numbers showed that Srivastava is a registered only at booth number 458 in Bengaluru's Mahadevapura assembly seat, while Singh is registered only at booth number 513 in the same constituency, the statement read."Srivastava is not a voter in Lucknow, while Singh cannot vote in Varanasi," it added.Gandhi had mentioned them during his press conference in which he doubled down on his "poll theft" charge. He cited data from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to claim over 1 lakh votes were "stolen" in Mahadevapura, which falls under the Bangalore Central parliamentary segment.The Congress MP alleged there was a "theft" of 1,00,250 votes in Mahadevapura, with 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 with fake and invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters or single-address voters, 4,132 voters with invalid photos, and 33,692 voters misusing Form 6 of new voters.The Bangalore Central seat is held by PC Mohan of the BJP, who won a fourth consecutive term. Mohan (658,915 votes) defeated Congress' Mansoor Ali Khan (626, 208) by 32,707 votes.