Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's recent allegation of vote manipulation in Haryana has renewed focus on the Election Commission's deduplication software, a tool that has remained unused for two years. Gandhi claimed that 25 lakh votes were stolen in the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections, including 5.21 lakh duplicate voters. He highlighted cases where different names shared identical photographs, including one allegedly being a stock image of a Brazilian model. The deduplication software, developed by the Centre for Development and Advanced Computing, was last deployed during the 2022 annual Special Summary Revision. That exercise resulted in the removal of approximately 3 crore duplicate or invalid entries, causing a rare contraction in India's voter rolls. Despite ongoing concerns about inflated and error-ridden voter lists, the software has not been reactivated since then, raising questions about electoral roll accuracy and the Commission's commitment to maintaining clean voter databases.
Deduplication Tool Remains Dormant Despite Persistent Concerns
The Election Commission's deduplication software, created by the Centre for Development and Advanced Computing, was specifically designed to identify photo similar entries and demographically similar entries in voter rolls. When last used during the 2022 Special Summary Revision, it helped remove around 3 crore duplicates, leading to one of only two contractions in India's electoral rolls between 2008 and 2024. Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar stated on October 27 that technical deduplication is only used when house-to-house verification is not occurring. Officials noted the system faced limitations due to uneven photo quality, which reduced its accuracy. The Commission has not clarified whether it plans to reintroduce the tool in future revisions despite mounting public scrutiny.
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