Lucknow, Sept. 27 -- The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday rubbished the Congress's allegation of 'vote chori' (vote theft) in the Kundarki assembly bypoll held in November 2024. In a post on X, Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa said, "An election petition has been filed in the Allahabad high court by Mohammad Rizwan, the candidate of Samajwadi Party in the by-election held in November 2024 in Kundarki assembly constituency. The matter is already sub-judice and hence no comments are being made regarding the said by-election." "However, there are multiple instances in India where the results of two consecutive elections held in the same constituency at an interval of a few months have yielded vastly different results (e.g in 114-Malegaon Central AC of Maharashtra, the INC candidate received only 3.13% of the votes polled in assembly elections of Maharashtra held in November 2024 whereas in the same assembly segment, the INC candidate secured unbelievably high 96.7% of votes polled in Lok Sabha elections held just five months earlier)," he said. "In so far as the electoral roll is concerned, neither religion nor caste is ever recorded for any elector. The impression given by the article in a magazine that its analysis and inference is based on the data released by the ECI is wrong in the sense that no analysis of any kind on the basis of religion or caste can be made by the data released by the ECI," he added. "It is also clarified that no complaint has been received for wrongful deletion/addition of any elector or wrongful rejection of Form-6 on the basis of his/her religion in Kundarki assembly constituency," he said. The Congress, in a post on X on Friday, said, "By-elections were held in the Kundarki assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP candidate secured a significant victory in this Muslim-majority seat. Now, data from the Election Commission has proven that massive 'vote chori' took place in this election. A magazine analysed the Election Commission's data, which revealed that, in addition to intimidating and threatening voters, manipulations were made to the voter list." Kundarki has traditionally been a Samajwadi Party stronghold. In the 2024 assembly by-election, BJP candidate Ramveer Singh defeated SP's Mohd Rizwan by 1.40 lakh votes. "This victory was surprising because, in the 2012, 2017, and 2022 assembly elections, the Samajwadi Party had won by 17,000, 10,000, and 43,162 votes, respectively. The BJP had never won this Muslim-majority seat," the Congress said....