Rahul Gandhi alleges fraudulent deletion of 6,000 voter names in Karnataka’s Aland
New Delhi (PTI): Taking forward his "vote theft" claims, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of protecting those who "destroyed democracy" and cited data from a Karnataka Assembly constituency to claim that votes of Congress supporters were being systematically deleted ahead of elections.
Mounting another frontal attack against the Election Commission, Gandhi said the poll panel must stop protecting "vote chors" and provide within a week information sought by the Karnataka CID in an investigation into voter deletions. If not, it will be known for sure that it is complicit in the "murder of the Constitution", Gandhi said at a press conference at the Congress' Indira Bhawan headquarters here.
He also made it clear at the outset that the revelations were not the "hydrogen bomb" that he has promised and those will come soon.
"I am just creating the foundation. This is going on for 10-15 years. India's democracy has been hijacked. Democracy can only be saved by the people of India. Rahul Gandhi can show the truth. The day the people realise that their democracy and Constitution have been stolen, the job will be done," Gandhi said.
He cited details of alleged attempts to delete votes from Karnataka's Aland constituency in the run up to the 2023 polls. He also gave the example of Maharashtra's Rajura constituency where he claimed voters were added in a fraudulent manner using automated software.
"Same system is doing this. It is doing it in Karnataka, Maharashtra, it has done it Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and we have proof of it," the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha alleged.
"Our demand is Gyanesh Kumar, do your job, you have taken an oath, you are India's chief election commissioner, you must give evidence to the Karnataka CID," Gandhi said.
Talking about the Aland example, Gandhi said there were targeted deletions in strong Congress booths.
"The top 10 booths with maximum deletions were Congress strongholds. Congress won eight out of the 10 booths in 2018. This was not a coincidence; this was a planned operation," he alleged.
He said his revelations today are another milestone in demonstrating to the youth of the country how elections are being rigged.
"I am going to make a serious claim about Gyanesh Kumar. I am not saying this lightly, I am the leader of opposition. The CEC is protecting vote chors and the people who have destroyed Indian democracy," Gandhi alleged
Someone has been systematically targeting millions of voters for deletion across India, he claimed.
"I am the leader of opposition and I will not say anything which is not backed by 100 per cent proof...I am someone who loves my country, I love my Constitution, I love the democratic process and I am protecting that process."
In Karnataka's Aland, someone tried to delete 6,018 votes and got caught "by coincidence", he said, alleging that names of voters of the Congress were being deleted systematically.
"The booth-level officer noticed that her uncle's vote got deleted and found her neighbour had deleted the vote of her uncle. She asked her neighbour who said he had no idea. It was found that some other force hijacked the process and deleted the vote -- and as luck would have it got caught," Gandhi said.
He claimed that 6,018 applications were filed impersonating voters and this filing was done automatically using mobile numbers from outside Karnataka.
Gandhi also called on stage a voter whose vote was attempted to be deleted and the person whose name was used to get the deletion done. Both denied any knowledge of it.
According to the Congress leader, the deletions were being done using a software.
Noting that there is an ongoing investigation in Karnataka, Gandhi said the CID has sent 18 letters in 18 months to the Election Commission and asked for some simple facts such as the destination IP from where these applications were filled and OTP trails.
They are not giving it because it will lead us to where this operation is being conducted, Gandhi claimed.
He accused Gyanesh Kumar of protecting those who are doing this.
"EC knows who is doing this. I want every youngster in India to know this. They are doing this to your future. When they are not giving this information, they are defending the murderers of democracy," Gandhi said.
The Congress leader said it will take two-three months for the research and presentations on alleged "vote chori" that his party has been carrying out.
"When we are done with these presentations, you will have no doubt in your mind that state after state (elections) and Lok Sabha after Lok Sabha are being stolen. My job is to lay bare the truth and show it to the people of the country," Gandhi said.
"This Constitution is the protector of the people and I am protecting this. The job of protecting it is of the institutions, but they are not doing it," he said.
Gandhi also claimed that the party is also getting information and help from inside the Election Commission.
"This will not stop. The people of India will not accept this. When youngsters get to know that the 'vote chori' is being done, their strength will also join in," he added.
Asked who is the mastermind, Gandhi said he will also lay that before the people and his "hydrogen bomb" of revelations will put everything out in black and white.
Last month, Gandhi, citing data from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, claimed that over one lakh votes were "stolen" through manipulation in Mahadevapura assembly segment in Karnataka, and asserted that "vote chori" is an "atom bomb on our democracy".
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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