EC Dismisses Rahul Gandhi’s Demand for CCTV Footage as ‘Politically Motivated’

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has pushed back against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s demand to publicly release CCTV footage from polling booths in Maharashtra, calling the move “politically motivated.”
Sources in the ECI told Hindustan Times that making such footage public could lead to voter harassment or profiling, especially in areas where a political party did not perform well. They suggested that the demand appears less about transparency and more about scoring political points.
The reaction came just hours after Rahul Gandhi accused the Commission of "deleting evidence." His comments followed an EC directive to state officials to destroy CCTV, webcasting, and other video footage 45 days after election results—provided those results aren’t legally challenged.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Gandhi, who is now Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, alleged a deliberate attempt to hide critical election data. “Voter list? Not in machine-readable format. CCTV footage? Hidden by changing the law. Election photos and videos? Now deleted in 45 days instead of a year,” he wrote. “The one who was supposed to provide answers is deleting the evidence.”
He repeated his earlier accusation that elections were being "fixed," calling it "poison for democracy."
Gandhi’s post followed his call earlier this month for the EC to make public all key election data from the Maharashtra Assembly polls held last year. He had accused the Commission of giving "evasive responses" to serious concerns and laid out steps he said were necessary to restore public trust.
Among his demands: publishing consolidated, machine-readable voter rolls for recent Lok Sabha and state elections, and releasing all post-5 pm CCTV footage from Maharashtra polling booths.
Gandhi has repeatedly claimed that the 2024 Maharashtra elections were a "blueprint for rigging" and warned that the same "match-fixing" would happen in upcoming polls, including in Bihar—especially in states where, he alleges, the BJP is on the back foot.
The Election Commission dismissed his allegations, calling them baseless. “Defaming the institution of the Election Commission simply because the voter did not deliver the desired result is both unfair and absurd,” the EC said in response.