Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday accused the Election Commission of “destroying evidence” instead of providing transparency and answers. This came after the poll body reduced the retention period of video footage and photographs of the polling process to 45 days.

“It is clear – the match is fixed,” said Gandhi, the leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, in a social media post. “And a fixed election is poison for democracy.”

In a notice to state chief electoral officers on May 30, the commission stated the videos and photos of the polling stations can be deleted after 45 days if no election petition is filed for it. The poll body was referring to petitions filed in courts to challenge the election of a candidate in a poll.

The move came in the wake of “recent misuse of this content by non-contestants for spreading misinformation and malicious narratives on social media”, said the Election Commission.

Gandhi has consistently been demanding access to voter lists, polling data and election footage, citing alleged irregularities in the Maharashtra Assembly elections that were held in November.

In an article published in The Indian Express on June 7, Gandhi reiterated allegations that there had been “match-fixing” in the Maharashtra polls. He alleged that there had been an “industrial-scale rigging involving the capture of our national institutions” during the elections.

The Election Commission, however, has said that the allegations by Gandhi were “completely absurd”. It has remarked that the entire election process, including the preparation of electoral rolls, takes place in the presence of representatives appointed by political parties.

In February, the Congress urged the Election Commission to explain how the number of registered voters (9.7 crore) for the Maharashtra Assembly polls was more than the adult population of the state (9.5 crore).

At the time, Gandhi had also urged the poll panel to explain why more voters were added to the state’s electoral rolls in the period between the Lok Sabha election and the Assembly polls than in the preceding five years.

The Election Commission said that attempts to defame it by parties that got an unfavourable verdict from voters were “completely absurd”.

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