New Delhi: Dropping what he termed an “atom bomb” of evidence, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday launched a scathing attack on the Election Commission of India. Gandhi presented what he described as evidence of “criminal electoral manipulation” in both Karnataka and Maharashtra, claiming that systematic tampering of voter rolls had affected the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections.
Presenting detailed data at a press conference in the national capital, Gandhi claimed that massive irregularities in the electoral rolls had severely compromised the integrity of the recent polls.
The Congress leader centred his allegations around the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency, where he claimed that over 100,250 votes were “stolen” through various means. According to him, the Congress party’s internal investigation uncovered 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 entries with fake or invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk or single-address voters, 4,132 entries with invalid photographs, and 33,692 voters who allegedly misused Form 6, which is intended for first-time registrations.
Gandhi cited individual examples to support his claims, including that of Gurkeerat Singh Dang, whose name, he alleged, appeared on the voters’ list four times across different booths. Another individual, Aditya Srivastava, was reportedly registered in three different states. He pointed to absurd entries in the electoral rolls, such as house numbers listed as “0” and father’s names filled in with random characters like “dfojgaidf.” One-bedroom houses reportedly had up to 80 registered voters, while another address listed 46. When Congress workers visited these addresses to verify the data, they were allegedly threatened and, in some cases, assaulted.
The Congress MP said these irregularities played a decisive role in the BJP’s victory in Bangalore Central. According to data shared by Gandhi, the BJP secured 658,915 votes in the constituency, defeating the Congress by a margin of 32,707 votes. In Mahadevapura alone, the BJP reportedly received 229,632 votes, while the Congress polled 115,586—a margin of 114,046 votes. Gandhi argued that this unusually wide gap was indicative of voter fraud.
Extending his allegations to Maharashtra, Gandhi claimed that around four million fake votes were cast during the Assembly elections in the state. He said the Congress had long suspected electoral manipulation, a suspicion that was confirmed after the results were announced. He alleged that the number of voters surged suddenly after 5 PM on polling day, suggesting mass fake voting.
Gandhi criticised the Election Commission for not providing digital copies of electoral rolls, alleging that this was a deliberate attempt to block scrutiny. He said the party had to manually examine seven feet of printed voter lists—a process that took six months and involved 30 to 40 people. If the Commission had provided machine-readable data, the task would have taken just seconds, he claimed.
Describing the compiled data as “evidence of a crime,” Gandhi accused the ECI of attempting to destroy related evidence such as CCTV footage and voter records. He maintained that this was not an isolated case but part of a broader pattern repeated across various states. “We are absolutely convinced that this crime is being done on a huge scale across the country,” he said.
Gandhi further alleged that the ECI had failed in its constitutional responsibility to safeguard democratic processes. “You are not in the business of destroying Indian democracy. You are in the business of protecting it,” he said, directly addressing the Commission.
The allegations come at a time of growing concern over electoral transparency and the credibility of democratic institutions in India. The Election Commission has yet to respond to Gandhi’s latest accusations.