Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha, in a fiery exchange with Times Now, reignited the political storm, accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of widespread “vote chori” and declaring, “Vote chor, gaddi chhod.” While he sidestepped questions on the escalating Nepal crisis, his sharp remarks triggered a war of words on the ground — BJP workers staged protests against his convoy in Raebareli, while Congress supporters countered with slogans targeting the ruling party.
On being asked about allegations of vote chori in Vice Presidential Polls, Rahul Gandhi said, “Vote Chor Gaddi chodh. This is happening all over the country and in Uttar Pradesh, it’s going all over the country.”
Responding to Gandhi scion’s remarks, BJP’s national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said, “Don’t know about vote chori, but Rahul ji should tell, has the brain of Congress leaders been stolen? Now, Rahul ji is saying a vote of conscience in the V-P election is also a vote chori. Where will your propaganda stop?.”
‘Vote Chori’ Row
‘Vote Chori’ row started on August 7 when Rahul Gandhi alleged large-scale voter manipulation in the 2024 parliamentary elections . He claimed that electoral rolls had been tampered with and cited constituency-level data to back his charge. According to him, Mahadevapura, part of Bangalore Central, had over 1,00,000 suspicious entries, including duplicate voters, invalid addresses and bulk registrations at the same location.
He claimed that there was “vote chori” of 1,00,250 votes in the Mahadevapura segment, with 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 voters with fake and invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters or single address voters, 4,132 voters with invalid photos and 33,692 voters misusing Form 6 of new voters which included those above 90 years.
He even presented examples such as a voter allegedly casting ballots twice — claims the ECI has rejected.
Gandhi further alleged that CCTV footage from polling booths had been deleted, and cited cases where dozens of voters were registered at the same address.
The row escalated against the backdrop of Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Between June and July, officials carried out the first state-wide voter verification exercise since 2003, covering nearly 79 million voters.
The draft list published on August 1 excluded about 65 lakh names. The ECI said deletions included 22 lakh dead voters, 7,00,000 duplicates and 36 lakh people who had migrated.
On August 14, the Supreme Court intervened. It directed the poll body to publish details of the 65 lakh deletions, with reasons, and to give wide publicity in newspapers and on TV and radio.
Congress hailed the decision as a “massive victory for democracy”. Party president Mallikarjun Kharge said, “The fight will continue, we will not let the people’s ‘right to vote’ be taken away!!”
Meanwhile, the BJP has hit back at the opposition in the ongoing “vote chori” row, accusing leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Akhilesh Yadav and Abhishek Banerjee of winning their seats through irregular voter registrations.