Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has once again raised his voice against vote chori (vote theft), accusing the BJP and the Election Commission of large-scale voter fraud in the 2024 Haryana assembly elections. He said he has “solid evidence” to prove that nearly 25 lakh fake votes, about 12 per cent of Haryana’s total voters, were cast. He alleged that this large-scale fraud was part of a planned effort to turn the Congress’s expected win into a loss.

“Haryana has 2 crore voters, and 25 lakh of them are fake. One in every eight voters is fake,” Gandhi said. He showed slides that he claimed proved manipulation in voter lists. In one example, a Brazilian model’s photo allegedly appeared multiple times in the voter roll under different names like Seema, Sweety, and Saraswati, suggesting she could have been used to cast votes 22 times.

Gandhi accused the BJP of orchestrating the fraud to manipulate the election outcome. “All exit polls showed Congress was winning in Haryana, but suddenly, the results changed. Even postal ballots didn’t match the actual votes for the first time in the state’s history,” he said. He also mocked Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Saini, referring to a video of him smiling after the election and hinting about a “vyavastha” (arrangement).

He further claimed that many BJP workers were registered to vote in both Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, naming specific party leaders. “A BJP leader from Palwal has 66 voters registered at his address, and one man has 500 voters listed at his home,” he alleged. Gandhi also mentioned irregularities with addresses marked as “House No. Zero,” saying many such voters were not homeless but living in proper houses.

Gandhi said the Election Commission was ignoring these issues and helping the BJP. “This is not just about fake votes, it’s about democracy itself,” he said. He warned that the BJP might repeat the same pattern in the upcoming Bihar elections, claiming that many genuine voters there had been removed from the rolls.

The Election Commission, however, rejected Gandhi’s allegations. It said no official appeals were filed against the voter list in Haryana and that only 22 petitions were pending in court. The EC also questioned how Gandhi could be sure that the duplicate votes went to the BJP, saying such claims lacked evidence.