Bengaluru: The Congress party staged a large-scale “Vote Adhikar Rally” at Freedom Park on Friday, launching a nationwide “do or die” movement to defend democracy amid serious allegations of voter fraud in the 2024 general elections.
Addressing the rally, Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi reiterated his charge that the BJP, in collusion with the Election Commission of India, rigged the polls and seized power through vote theft. “The vote is our right, but stealing it to grab power is unacceptable,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi said Congress’s six-month investigation into the Mahadevapura Assembly segment under the Bengaluru Central parliamentary constituency had uncovered thousands of suspicious entries, including duplicate registrations and voters with dubious or non-existent addresses. He demanded that the Karnataka government investigate the alleged irregularities and hold accountable every officer and election commissioner involved.
He added that if the Election Commission provided Congress with electronic voter lists and video records, it would prove how votes were stolen nationwide. Claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power with a margin of just 25 seats, Rahul said, “We have already proven the theft of one seat, and if we get the data, we will show that many more seats were stolen across India.” Even without the data, he said, Congress would continue investigations using paper records and expand its scrutiny to 20–25 more assembly constituencies.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and Congress state president D K Shivakumar, who joined the protest, said he had filed a formal complaint with the Chief Electoral Officer over widespread anomalies in voter lists across the state. He demanded a statewide audit, the publication of digital electoral rolls, and strict action against officials responsible.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge also addressed the gathering, calling the NDA government a “government of theft” and alleging that bogus voting had contributed to his own 2019 defeat in Gulbarga. Drawing a parallel with the Quit India Movement launched on 8 August 1942, Kharge urged people to rise against what he called the erosion of democratic rights. He announced that MPs from the INDIA bloc would march to the Election Commission in Delhi on August 11 to submit a memorandum.
Congress leaders said the campaign will continue nationwide until electoral transparency and democratic values are fully restored.