New Delhi – In a significant escalation of his electoral fraud claims, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of “protecting the people who have destroyed Indian democracy.” Gandhi, who had previously promised a “hydrogen bomb” of revelations, held a press conference to present what he called “black and white” proof of voter manipulation.
The Congress leader alleged that a systematic effort is underway to delete millions of votes across India, specifically targeting communities that traditionally support the opposition, such as Dalits, tribals, minorities, and OBCs. He claimed that this deletion is not being done by individuals but through a centralized process using software.
As a case in point, Gandhi cited a specific incident in the Aland constituency of Karnataka. He presented evidence that showed 6,018 applications for voter deletion were filed by impersonators. The fraud was uncovered by chance when a booth-level officer noticed her uncle’s name had been deleted and traced the application back to a neighbor. The investigation revealed that neither the person whose vote was deleted nor the person who allegedly filed the application knew about it, suggesting a third party had hijacked the process.
Gandhi further alleged that the fraudulent applications used mobile numbers from outside Karnataka, confirming that the deletions were “not random” and were specifically aimed at booths where the Congress party had been winning. He stated that this is just one example of a much larger, nationwide “vote chori” (vote theft) model.
The Congress leader’s latest accusations are a continuation of his months-long campaign against what he calls electoral malpractice. The Election Commission, in response to his earlier allegations, had challenged him to submit evidence under oath or issue a public apology, a request that was also made by Chief Electoral Officers in Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Haryana.
The BJP has dismissed Gandhi’s allegations as “baseless” and accused him of trying to undermine a constitutional institution. The ECI has previously refuted his claims, stating that all revisions and electoral processes are conducted in a transparent manner and that the opposition’s allegations are “misleading.”