During a press conference on Thursday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi presented what he claimed was definitive evidence of a conspiracy aimed at systematically removing voters from electoral rolls throughout India. He asserted that organized groups are targeting millions of voters for deletion, particularly in regions where the Congress party has performed well in elections. Gandhi maintained that all his statements were backed by what he described as ‘100 percent proof.’ He provided detailed information indicating that the alleged voter deletion activities were carried out using automated systems and coordinated through centralized call centers. Gandhi highlighted specific instances from Karnataka’s Aland constituency, alleging that there were attempts to delete more than 6,000 votes.
He cited the case of an individual named Godabai, who was reportedly unaware that fake login credentials had been created in her name to delete 12 voters. Another example involved a person named Suryakant, who allegedly managed to delete 12 voters in just 14 minutes. Gandhi introduced both Suryakant and one of the claimed deleted voters, Babita Choudhari, during his presentation.
He also mentioned a case involving someone named Nagaraj, where two forms were allegedly filled out in just 38 seconds at 4:07 AM, which he deemed ‘humanly impossible.’ The presentation included evidence of mobile phone numbers from various states being used in these operations, prompting Gandhi to question the identity of the number owners and the generation of one-time passwords (OTPs) for these actions. He alleged that these operations utilized automated programs aimed at targeting the first voter at each booth, with coordination occurring at a call center level as part of what he termed a planned, centralized operation using phones from outside the impacted states.
This press conference marked the second in Gandhi’s series of allegations regarding what he calls ‘vote chori’ (vote theft). In an earlier press conference on August 7, he accused the Election Commission of working with the BJP to enable electoral manipulation, claiming that the commission was complicit in systematic vote tampering. During that August briefing, Gandhi alleged that a 40-member team conducted a six-month investigation revealing significant irregularities in the electoral rolls of Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly segment, which is part of the Bengaluru Central constituency.
He claimed to have uncovered over 100,000 fraudulent voter entries in that area, along with various discrepancies such as fake voter registrations, suspicious father names, irregular house numbers, destruction of CCTV footage, and the Election Commission’s refusal to provide voter data. Gandhi had stated that these irregularities were not limited to Karnataka, alleging that similar tactics were employed to manipulate elections in Maharashtra and Haryana as well.