Shortfalls found in UP chief electoral officer’s response to Rahul Gandhi’s allegations: Report
New Delhi: Congress leader and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi held a press conference in the city on Thursday, August 7, where he alleged that there had been voter list manipulation during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and accused the Election Commission (EC) of ‘vote theft’ and ‘criminal fraud’.
During a presentation where he provided information on one constituency in Karnataka, Gandhi cited the examples of two voters, Aditya Srivastava and Vishal Singh, whose names were in the lists of other states, including Uttar Pradesh. While the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Uttar Pradesh issued a statement on August 7, stating that neither Aditya Srivastava nor Vishal Singh were in UP voter lists, AltNews states that it has found shortcomings in the response of the CEO.
Gandhi used screenshots from the EC website from March 16, 2025 to explain his argument regarding Srivastava and Singh, and questioned the possibility of the same voter featuring in the lists of more than one state. The screenshot also showed the name of Srivastava, with EPIC number FPP6437040, present in the voter lists of two booths of the Mahadevapura constituency in Karnataka. A voter with the same name and EPIC number was found in the lists of Jogeshwari East constituency in Maharashtra and also of Lucknow East in Uttar Pradesh.
The LoP further showed during the press conference that Vishal Singh’s name, with EPIC number INB2722288, appeared in lists of two booths in Mahadevapura as well as Varanasi Cantt assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh.
The Uttar Pradesh CEO, refuting Gandhi’s charges, said that the EC website showed Srivastava, with EPIC number FPP6437040 and as son of SP Srivastava, and Vishal Singh, with EPIC number INB2722288, son of Mahipal Singh, to be at serial number 1265 in Mahadevapura booth number 458, Bengaluru Urban, and serial number 926 in Mahadevapura booth number 513 respectively. The CEO added that neither of the voters was in the lists in UP.
AltNews has shown that, while Gandhi shared an EC website screenshot dated March 16, 2025, the UP CEO’s statement was based on a search of the website on August 7, 2025.
Citing its own search, the media house stated that the names and EPIC numbers shared by the LoP were from the Draft Roll-2025 published by the Election Commission on October 29, 2024 and Final Roll-2025 published on January 7, 2025 for Lucknow East and Varanasi Cantt constituencies. “We found that the names of Aditya Srivastava and Vishal Singh were present in these lists. The EPIC numbers of both match the screenshot shared by Rahul Gandhi. The UP CEO’s statement does not match the information in the Draft Roll-2025 and Final Roll-2025 available on the Election Commission website that we accessed. Their statement appears to be misleading and false,” AltNews has said.
Also stating that a close check of the UP CEO’s statement showed more errors, AltNews pointed out that the officer has said that Srivastava’s details show the voter to be the son of SP Srivastava. “However, when we searched with Aditya Srivastava’s EPIC number in the voter list of the Mahadevpura constituency, the voter details were different from the UP CEO’s statement. The voter details do not show Aditya Srivastava’s father’s name but the name of a relative – Rithika Srivastava,” the media house has said.
Referring to other details on the voter, the report states, “Moreover, when we tried to look for Aditya Srivastava based on the information in the screenshot shared by Rahul Gandhi under the ‘Search by Details’ option on the Election Commission’s website, we found the name Aditya Srivastava, the son of S P Srivastava (as mentioned in the UP CEO’s statement), in the voter list of Lucknow East assembly seat. However, in a strange twist, the EPIC number against his name is different now.”
In addition, speaking of the voter’s details in the Final Roll-2025, AltNews has said, “We cross-checked his details with the Final Roll-2025 published by the Election Commission and found that most of these details such as the polling station, serial number and age of the voter (Aditya Srivastava, son of SP Srivastava) matched except the EPIC number. The EPIC number FPP6437040 has been changed to RXM4728275.”
The media house stated that its findings as compared to those of the UP CEO showed that the claims made by the officer to be not only misleading but also issued in urgency and without adequate research.
— CEO UP (@ceoup) August 7, 2025
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Pak court grants bail to PM Shehbaz's daughter and her husband in graft case
Lahore (PTI): A Pakistani court on Tuesday granted bail to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's daughter Rabia Imran and her husband Imran Yousaf in a mega corruption and money laundering case.
Judge Ashfaq Ahmed allowed the bail petitions of the couple and restrained the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) from arresting them till May 7.
"The special court (central) Lahore granted interim pre-arrest bail to PM Shehbaz's daughter, Rabia Imran and her husband Imran Yousaf till May 7 in a mega corruption and money laundering case as the couple personally appeared before the court along with their counsel after arriving from the UK, where they had gone in 2022 to evade arrest," a court official said.
Last week, an accountability court had suspended the perpetual arrest warrants issued against the couple in the multi-billion corruption case, related to the Punjab Saaf Pani Company case.
The accountability court had issued perpetual warrants for their arrest in 2022 during the tenure of the Imran Khan government.
The PM's daughter and her husband had fled to the UK in 2022, and the court subsequently had declared them proclaimed offenders.
Interestingly, the country's anti-graft body -- National Accountability Bureau (NAB) -- that had instituted the multi-billion corruption case against the couple told the accountability court that it has no objection if the court suspends their warrants.
PM Shehbaz was also nominated in this corruption case but has been acquitted because of a lack of evidence.
Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has consistently alleged that the acquittal of PM Shehbaz and other ruling coalition members in various mega corruption cases is the result of a "compromised judiciary" and a "NAB-PMLN nexus" (referring to a perceived alliance between the NAB and the military-backed government).
His party has claimed these acquittals represent the "demise of justice" and has accused the judiciary of acting as a "silent accomplice" to state-backed political terrorism.
Khan was ousted from power in April 2022 through a no-confidence motion. Subsequently, he was arrested in August 2023 and has been in jail in multiple cases since then.
