Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi is set to make another ‘big revelation’ on his ‘vote chauri’ claims. Here is a look at previous instances when he held press conferences to “expose” the Election Commission (EC), and the allegations he made.
On August 7, Gandhi accused the EC and the BJP of committing a “massive criminal fraud” in the elections. While presenting what he described as the findings of the Congress probe into the Mahadevapura Assembly constituency – part of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka – he alleged that votes were “stolen” in multiple ways.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters, he said the Congress won all the Assembly segments in Bangalore Central except Mahadevapura and lost the parliamentary seat by 1,14,046 votes. “We started looking at this number. Why does this imbalance come from one seat? We found that 100,250 votes were stolen out of a total of 6.5 thousand votes,” he said.
According to Gandhi, these votes were stolen in five ways – through duplicate voters, fake and invalid addresses, bulk voters at one address, invalid photos, and misuse of Form 6, used to register first-time voters. He said Congress’ analysis found 11,965 duplicate votes, 40,009 fake or invalid addresses, 10,452 mass voters using the same address, 4,132 invalid photos, and 33,692 cases of Form 6 abuse.
He displayed voter lists showing a person identified as Aditya Srivastava, claiming that the same person was registered at polling stations in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. “This is not an isolated case. There are thousands like this in one part of the association,” he said.
Regarding the misuse of Form 6, Gandhi said a 70-year-old woman, Shakun Rani, was registered twice in two months and voted in two different booths. He added: “There are 33,692 such cases. Most of these supposed new voters are elderly people, and have been registered multiple times.”
He claimed that the manipulation was not limited to one part of the association. “We have studied the pattern and are convinced that this crime is being committed on a large scale across states,” he said, adding that this explains why opinion polls and internal polls are “widely wrong.”
Gandhi accused the EC of colluding with the BJP by refusing to share machine-readable voter lists and not allowing CCTV footage to be audited. “The European Commission is destroying evidence of vote theft across the country,” he claimed. He said the difference between the BJP and Congress in last year’s Haryana Assembly polls was just 22,779 votes, alleging a “pattern” where the BJP sweeps some seats with “abnormal margins” while others show normal contest. He added, “The Prime Minister became prime minister because he obtained 25 seats,” accusing the European Commission of “destroying the electoral system.”
On September 18, Gandhi made new allegations, this time focusing on widespread additions and deletions of votes. He claimed that voters – especially from opposition-supporting communities such as Dalits, Adivasis, minorities and OBCs – were systematically targeted and their names were deleted.
He accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of protecting “voting groups” and “those who kill democracy”. “This is not something I say lightly. I am a Lok Sabha Member of Parliament. I have strong black and white evidence that the CEC is protecting people who have destroyed Indian democracy,” he said.
Gandhi said his recent revelations were aimed at showing the youth “how elections are rigged.” But he added that this is not the “hydrogen bomb” he promised. “That will come soon,” he said. “In election after election, millions of voters are being systematically deleted across India. We have 100 per cent proof,” he asserted.
The European Commission rejected these allegations as “incorrect and baseless,” noting that no online voice can be deleted by any member of the public and that deletion does not occur without giving the affected person a hearing. Citing the Aland Assembly constituency in Karnataka, it said that in 2023 “failed attempts” were made to delete votes, following which the Commission itself filed an FIR. “As per records, Subhad Jotedar (BJP) won Aland in 2018 and B R Patel (INC) in 2023,” the EC said.
Gandhi cited Aland as evidence of a nationwide pattern of “vote deletion”, claiming that someone had tried to delete 6,018 votes from booths with a strong Congress presence. He said: “We do not know the total number of deletions, but by chance 6,018 were arrested.” He also shared a list of mobile phone numbers that were allegedly used for these deletions in Karnataka, claiming that they came from outside the state. “Whose numbers are these? Who ran them? Who created the one-time treatment programs?” he asked.
He said that manipulation is not done by individuals, but rather by software. According to him, the top 10 constituencies that saw the highest number of delistings in Aland were Congress strongholds, of which the party won eight in 2018. “This is a planned process,” he said.
Citing the ongoing investigation by the Karnataka Police’s Crime Investigation Department (CID) which began in February 2023, Gandhi said the EC had failed to share key data sought by investigators. “CID wrote 18 letters in 18 months asking for three simple things – destination IP addresses from which the forms were submitted, ports of devices used, and OTP paths. However, the EC did not respond,” he said.
He also cited Maharashtra’s Rajura constituency, alleging that 6,850 fake additions were made online using automated software. “The Chief Election Commissioner must stop protecting people who are destroying Indian democracy. The EC must release this data – phone numbers, one-time device records – within a week. Otherwise, it will prove that Gyanesh Kumar is protecting those responsible,” Gandhi said.
He also claimed that insiders within the European Commission had begun sharing information with Congress. He said: “The information is now coming from within the Election Commission. This will not stop, and it cannot be stopped. Once people know about this Korean vote, they will not allow it to continue.”
(Tags for translation)Rahul Gandhi
