At the backdrop of several allegations leveled against the Election Commission of India (ECI) by Opposition parties, the ruling BJP on Wednesday trained its guns at the Congress over its vote theft allegations, claiming that its towering leader Sonia Gandhi’s name appeared on the electoral rolls in 1980, three years before she became an Indian citizen in 1983.
The BJP claimed irregularities in voter registration in Rae Bareli, Wayanad, Diamond Harbour and Kannauj parliamentary seats and asked Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Abhishek Banerjee and Akhilesh Yadav to resign as Lok Sabha MPs, alleging they secured victory with vote theft. The BJP accused the Congress and other Opposition parties of running a campaign against the ECI to steal the mandate of “honest and genuine Indian citizens” while compromising national security.
About 2.99 lakh “doubtful voters” were registered in the Rae Bareli constituency, Thakur alleged. Rae Bareli is represented by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. Of them, about 19,512 entries are duplicate voters, 71,977 voters have fake addresses, 15,853 voters showed mixed households, and 92,747 voters were listed via mass addition, he claimed.
Thakur alleged that the Congress started the “tradition of rigging elections” in 1952 and continued it by indulging in various electoral malpractices like booth capturing and misuse of Governmentmachinery during its terms.
In a presentation at the BJP headquarters on an ‘analysis’ of electoral rolls in these constituencies represented by opposition leaders, former Union minister Anurag Thakur also flagged “irregularities” in the voter registration in Kolathur assembly seat in Tamil Nadu and Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh, and asked Chief Minister and DMK supremo M K Stalin and SP leader Dimple Yadav to resign for “rigging” election.
Led by Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and other opposition parties, they are running the campaign against the poll watchdog to steal the mandate of “honest and genuine Indian citizens” for their appeasement politics while compromising the national security and weakening democracy in the country, he charged.
In his reaction on social media, BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya said, “Sonia Gandhi’s tryst with India’s voters’ list is riddled with glairing violations of electoral law. This perhaps explains Rahul Gandhi’s fondness for regularising ineligible and illegal voters, and his opposition to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).”
According to Malviya’s claim, Sonia Gandhi name was added during 1980 when she was having Italian citizenship and was residing with Gandhi Family at 1, Safdarjung Road, official residence of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. “Untill then the voters registered at the address were Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi and Menaka Gandhi. In 1980 Sonia Gandhi name was added at serial number 388in polling station 145,” Malviya said.
“This entry was a clear violation of the law, which requires a person to be an Indian citizen to be registered as a voter. Following an outcry in 1982, her name was deleted from the list-only to reappear in 1983,” Malviya added.
“In the fresh revision of the electoral rolls of the year, Sonia Gandhi was listed at serial number 236 in polling station 140. The qualifying date for registration was January 1, 1983-yet she was granted Indian citizenship only on April 30, 1983,” asserted Malviya adding, “We are not even asking why it took her 15 years after marrying Rajiv Gandhi to accept Indian citizenship.”
Thakur also slammed TMC, Samajwadi Party and DMK leaders for raising questions against the Nirvachan Sadan and accused them of running a vicious propaganda against the special intensive revision (SIR) of the elector rolls, which is currently underway in Bihar and would be launched in other states, to protect their “vote bank of illegal Bangladeshi infiltration” and other “intruders”
“Seeing this ‘shor’ (hue and cry) being made by the Opposition, it now seems that ‘chor machaye shor’”, he said, suggesting those who are in the wrong are now crying foul. “Rae Bareli, Wayanad, Kannuaj, to Diamond Harbour -- everywhere one question is coming up -- why did they make fake voters. Will they resign for indulging in ‘vote chori’ and protecting intruders?” Thakur said.
Levelling allegations of “vote chori”, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had on Thursday, through a presentation at a Press conference, cited data from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to claim that over 1 lakh votes were “stolen” in Mahadevapura assembly segment in Karnataka through five types of manipulation, including duplicate voters, fake and invalid addresses, single-address voters.
On Tuesday, opposition leaders took out a protest march from the Parliament House to the Election Commission’s headquarters here on the issue but were stopped and briefly detained by the police.
The Congress on Wednesday stepped up its campaign against alleged ‘vote chori’ by releasing a new video depicting how “fake votes” were being cast, with party chief Mallikarjun Kharge asking people to raise their voice and save constitutional institutions from the “clutches of the BJP”.
On Tuesday, Opposition leaders took out a protest march from the Parliament House to the Election Commission’s headquarters here on the issue of “vote theft” and special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, but were stopped and briefly detained by the police.