Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s latest “vote chori” allegation in Haryana has put the spotlight on a key Election Commission (EC) tool that has quietly gone unused for two years — the deduplication software designed to identify duplicate and photo-similar entries in the electoral rolls.

According to sources in the Commission, this tool, developed by the Centre for Development and Advanced Computing (CDAC), was last deployed during the 2022 annual Special Summary Revision (SSR). That exercise led to a rare contraction in the country’s total number of registered voters and the removal of roughly 3 crore duplicate or invalid entries, officials familiar with the process said.

Since then, however, the software has not been used, even as allegations over inflated or error-ridden voter lists

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