Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has launched a scathing attack on the Election Commission (EC), alleging it is “openly colluding” with the BJP to orchestrate large-scale electoral fraud through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. In a video posted on his YouTube channel on Friday, Gandhi described SIR as “institutionalised chori” aimed at disenfranchising poor voters across India.
Gandhi claims the EC initiated SIR in Bihar only after Congress exposed alleged voter manipulation, and accused the poll body of helping the ruling party “steal elections.” The allegations follow a press conference where Gandhi unveiled data from an investigation into the Mahadevapura assembly segment in Karnataka’s Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat, which he said revealed a theft of 1,00,250 votes through five forms of manipulation.
According to Gandhi, the irregularities include 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 entries with fake or invalid addresses, 10,452 voters registered under a single address, 4,132 invalid voter photos, and 33,692 misuses of Form 6—meant for new voters. Citing examples, he pointed to voters registered multiple times, others listed with non-existent addresses like “House Number 0,” and cases of one house having up to 80 registered voters.
He warned that this manipulation was not limited to one seat, stating, “I am confident this has happened in over 100 constituencies.” Gandhi added that if the BJP had won 10–15 fewer seats, there would be an INDIA bloc government today.
Calling the EC’s actions “treason,” he accused it of deliberately withholding digital voter list data to avoid scrutiny. “The truth is in black and white, but the EC refuses to investigate. They know we have caught their chori,” Gandhi said. He emphasized that his party had only looked into voter additions and suspects deletions may be even higher.
Recalling past suspicions, Gandhi said discrepancies between voter turnout and crowd response during campaign events prompted further scrutiny. He cited examples from Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra where election outcomes appeared inconsistent with ground sentiment.
Gandhi also referenced a period after the 2018 Madhya Pradesh elections—where Congress initially formed the government but later lost power—alleging BJP manipulation continued into 2023. He claimed that in Maharashtra, new voters “magically” appeared between Lok Sabha and Assembly polls and disproportionately favored the BJP.
He said repeated denials from the EC, including refusal to share machine-readable voter lists or polling booth footage, raised serious questions about the commission’s neutrality. “When we asked the EC for data, they gave us reams of paper instead of digital files. Why? Because if they give digital data, their fraud will be exposed,” Gandhi said.
In a post on X tagging the video, Gandhi wrote, “Vote theft is not just an election scam, it is a betrayal of our Constitution and democracy. Criminals of the country should listen — times will change, punishment will be given.”
The Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka has since asked Rahul Gandhi to submit the names of electors he alleged were wrongly added or removed, along with a signed affidavit, to initiate further proceedings.
