Rahul Gandhi Alleges 25 Lakh Fake Votes In Haryana Assembly Elections

Allegations of Vote Manipulation

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi claimed that about 25 lakh fake votes were recorded during the Haryana Assembly elections held last year. He alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had come to power through electoral manipulation, which he referred to as "Operation Sarkar Chori".

At a press conference at the AICC headquarters, Gandhi attributed these alleged anomalies to the Bihar Assembly polls later this year, cautioning that the same tampering of votes could very well take place in Bihar. He accused the ECI of having failed to spot any aberrations, including 501 registered voters in one house, and even fake entries with the photo of a Brazilian model.

Claims About Vote Discrepancies

• Rahul Gandhi further revealed that the Congress had won a majority in 73 constituencies through postal ballots, while the BJP won only 17 in that category. On the other hand, he said, the EVM results suggested the opposite trend.
• According to him, Congress did intensive verifications before making the data public. Gandhi said, “We are going to prove this 100%.” He accused Chief Minister Nayab Saini of declaring, after elections, that the BJP would form the government as they had already prepared a “system” for that.
• Gandhi said that in Haryana, which has about 2 crore registered voters, there were 25 lakh fake votes. He elaborated on the alleged figures thus:
  • 5,21,619 duplicate votes
  • 93,174 invalid votes
  • 19,26,351 bulk votes
• He added that this means one in every eight voters was not genuine. Gandhi also alleged that BJP workers from other regions were involved in influencing the voting process.

Criticism of the Election Commission

He accused the Election Commission of abdicating its constitutional duty to ensure elections are transparent. According to him, the Commission was destroying the CCTV footage and assigned certain houses with "zero numbers" with a view to not disclosing the identity of voters. He further claimed that the Commission was in league with the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, which, according to him, undermined the very basics of democracy.

He said the Election Commission is obligated to prepare a correct and clean voter list; it cannot shift the blame regarding this onto political parties to avoid accountability.

BJP and ECI Response

Union Minister Kiren Rijiju rejected Gandhi's statements, describing them as false and unfounded. He said that if the Congress had to object to anything in the voter list, it should have done so before the elections and not after. The Election Commission of India also rejected the charge and explained that no formal objections were filed on the voter lists. It also asked why the booth agents from the Congress did not raise any objections during the polling process if multiple voting actually took place.