Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi has once again accused the BJP of “stealing votes,” claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the country’s leader through “vote theft.” He made these strong allegations while speaking to reporters on Friday, referring to the alleged large-scale fraud in the Haryana assembly elections held last year.

Rahul Gandhi said he has a lot of evidence and will continue to expose what he called “chunav chori” (vote theft). “We will show India’s youth that Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister through vote theft. The BJP has been stealing elections, and we will make this clear so that there is no doubt,” he said.

According to Gandhi, around 25 lakh fake votes were added out of two crore total voters in Haryana. He explained that this means “one out of every eight voters was fake, about 12.5%.” He also shared a presentation showing examples from the voter list, including a picture of a Brazilian model used in 22 fake entries.

He questioned the Election Commission for not taking any action. “How can voting be done using a Brazilian woman’s photo? The Haryana elections were not real elections. It was wholesale theft. The Election Commission has not responded to these fake votes and fake photos,” he said.

Rahul Gandhi also accused the BJP, Prime Minister Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Election Commission of “attacking the Constitution.” He alleged that similar vote theft could happen in the ongoing Bihar elections as well. “The Constitution says ‘one man, one vote,’ but in Haryana it became ‘one man, multiple votes,’” he added.

The BJP strongly denied the allegations. Party spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari called Rahul Gandhi a “threat to the Constitution” and said he spreads lies to mislead people.

Meanwhile, the Brazilian woman whose photo went viral, Larissa Nery, told NDTV that she was shocked to see her picture being used in the controversy. The 28-year-old hairdresser said she thought it was a joke at first but later got scared. Her photo, it turns out, is freely available on stock image websites like Unsplash and Pexels.