Everything you need to know about Congress’ vote theft allegations
New Delhi: August 7, 2025: In a bold and scathing presentation titled "Vote Chori", Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has levelled serious allegations against the Election Commission of India (EC), claiming the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were marred by organised and systemic voter fraud. The 70-slide presentation, prepared by the Congress party, was publicly shared and is being cited by the Opposition as proof of what they describe as "theft of democracy."
The Congress party claims that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retained power by stealing votes through deliberate manipulation of electoral rolls and processes, particularly in key constituencies like Bangalore Central.
Key Allegations by the Opposition
According to the presentation, Rahul Gandhi and his party believe the following indicators point to manipulation:
Unusual victory margins for BJP despite visible anti-incumbency.
Discrepancy between opinion/exit polls and actual results.
Sudden spike in voter turnout post 5 PM, which the party finds suspicious.
Massive addition of new voters in just five months — allegedly more than the total number of voters added in five years.
These, the Congress argues, led to public doubts and have now been confirmed, in their view, by a detailed analysis of one key seat.
Focus on Bangalore Central: The Congress Case Study
The Congress has chosen Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat as its main case study to expose what it calls “mass-scale vote theft”.
In this seat, Congress candidate Mansoor Ali Khan lost to BJP’s P.C. Mohan by a margin of 32,707 votes. However, when broken down assembly-wise, the Congress says the defeat was largely due to the Mahadevapura Assembly Segment, where the BJP had an overwhelming lead of 1,15,586 votes. In contrast, in all other segments combined, Congress claims it was leading by around 82,000 votes.
This led the party to launch its own investigation into Mahadevapura.
Congress Investigation: Findings from Mahadevapura
The Congress party says it manually reviewed lakhs of entries from physical electoral rolls — amounting to over 7 feet of paper — and found 1,00,250 fraudulent votes. These were categorised into five types of what they call “Vote Chori”:
Duplicate Voters – 11,965 entries
Voters appearing multiple times on the rolls within the same or different constituencies. One voter, Gurkirat Singh Dang, was reportedly found listed in Mahadevapura, multiple times.
Fake or Invalid Addresses – 40,009 entries
Voters with non-existent addresses, or just symbols like “0”, “-”, or “#”. Many addresses were untraceable.
Bulk Voters in One Address – 10,452 entries
Dozens of voters listed under the same room or commercial property. For example:
80 voters listed in House No. 35
46 voters in House No. 791
68 voters in a brewery called “153 Biere Club”
Invalid or Unclear Photographs – 4,132 entries
Voter photos that were so small or distorted they were unrecognisable. Congress claims these make in-person verification impossible.
Misuse of Form 6 – 33,692 entries
Form 6 is meant for first-time voters. Congress alleges that this was weaponised to register duplicate voters. One example was a 70-year-old woman named Shakun Rani, found registered twice in a span of two months, each with slightly altered photos and names — and both entries had reportedly cast votes.
The presentation claims that these irregularities explain the abnormal margins in Mahadevapura and strongly contributed to Congress’s loss in Bangalore Central.
Why Congress Claims the EC Is Involved
Rahul Gandhi accused the Election Commission of actively evading scrutiny, listing several actions allegedly taken to hide the irregularities:
EC refused to share digital voter rolls, forcing Congress to go through paper records.
EC changed rules to limit access to CCTV footage from polling booths.
Congress wrote four letters demanding voter rolls but received no transparent response.
Allegations that the EC is destroying or has destroyed records critical to verifying these claims.
The party says all of this amounts to deliberate suppression of transparency and accuses the EC of helping the ruling party.
Rahul Gandhi further claimed that the vote theft wasn’t limited to one seat or one state. He highlighted that:
In Haryana, Congress lost eight seats by a combined margin of just 22,779 votes, out of nearly 2 crore votes cast.
BJP won 25 Lok Sabha seats with a margin of under 33,000 votes.
These slim victories, he argues, were enough for the BJP to retain power in 2024.
Political Reactions and Demands
The Congress party is using this presentation to rally public and legal pressure. They’ve raised the issue in:
Parliament (on 3 Feb and 10 Mar 2025)
Press conferences (such as one on 7 Feb 2025)
Editorials published in newspapers
Four written letters to the Election Commission
Rahul Gandhi concluded in the presentation that India’s democracy is under serious threat, claiming the EC is no longer functioning as a neutral body but as an enabler of electoral fraud.
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Congress misleading public on National Herald case, matter still in court: BJP
New Delhi (PTI): The BJP on Wednesday accused the Congress of running misleading propaganda over the trial court's decision in the National Herald case and said the court refused to take cognisance of the complaint but did not set aside the case.
The case is still pending trial in the Delhi High Court, and the trial court in its order on Tuesday said that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) can continue its investigation, BJP national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia asserted.
"The court yesterday (Tuesday) said that since it is a private complaint and no FIR has been lodged, it will not take cognizance of it. It's a technical matter. The court also said that ED can continue its investigation further. The court did not set it aside," Bhatia told a press conference at the BJP headquarters here
"Its trial is still going on. Sonia Gandhi is still Accused Number-1 and Rahul Gandhi Accused Number-2," the BJP spokesperson said, alleging, "The Gandhi family thrives on deceit, deception, and propaganda."
