Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday intensified his attack on the BJP and the Election Commission, alleging systemic voter manipulation in India. Speaking at a press conference in Delhi, Gandhi presented evidence pointing to irregularities in Karnataka’s Aland constituency as an example of “vote chori”.

With a detailed presentation, the Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition claimed that names were being removed from electoral rolls through software manipulation and fake applications. “Aland is a constituency in Karnataka. “Somebody tried to delete 6,018 votes,” Gandhi said. “We don’t know the total number of votes that were deleted in Åland in the 2023 election. They are much higher than 6,018, but somebody got caught deleting those 6,018 votes, and it was caught by coincidence.”

He explained how the alleged tampering was discovered. According to Gandhi, a booth-level officer noticed her uncle’s name missing from the voter list. “She checked who deleted her uncle’s vote, and she found that it was a neighbour. She asked her neighbour, but they said I did not delete any vote. Neither the person deleting the vote nor the person whose vote was deleted knew. Some other force hijacked the process and deleted the vote,” he said.

Gandhi further accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of protecting those responsible. “I am not saying this lightly but as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. The Chief Election Commissioner of India is protecting vote thieves. This is black and white evidence; there is no confusion in this,” he charged.

Earlier this month, after completing his Voter Adhikar Yatra, Gandhi had promised that Congress would soon reveal a “hydrogen bomb” of proof of vote theft. At Thursday’s press conference, he clarified that this presentation was not the promised H-bomb but said it would come soon.

The allegations mark a sharp escalation in Congress’s criticism of the Election Commission and the BJP, raising concerns about voter rights and transparency in upcoming elections.

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