PTC Web Desk: Dropping what he described as a “hydrogen bomb” of evidence, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused unidentified groups of orchestrating mass voter deletions across India in a centrally coordinated manner. Addressing a high-profile press conference, Rahul Gandhi asserted that he had “100 per cent proof” to back his claims and presented examples from Karnataka to demonstrate how the alleged voter fraud was carried out.
“I am not going to say anything on this stage that is not backed up by 100 per cent proof,” Rahul Gandhi told the media.
LIVE: Special press briefing by LoP Shri Rahul Gandhi at Indira Bhawan, New Delhi
Citing the Aland constituency in Karnataka, Rahul Gandhi alleged that attempts were made to delete at least 6,018 votes, mostly from booths where the Congress party was in a strong position. He added that the case was exposed by chance, similar to “most crimes.”
One example Rahul Gandhi highlighted involved a woman named Godabai, in whose name fake logins were created to delete 12 voters. “Godabai has no idea this happened,” he said.
Backing his claims with phone numbers shown on screen, Rahul Gandhi alleged that the deletion operations were executed using mobile numbers from outside Karnataka. “The question is, whose numbers are these, how were OTPs generated, and who was operating them?” he asked.
Another case cited was of a man named Suryakant, who allegedly deleted 12 voters in just 14 minutes. Rahul Gandhi even called both Suryakant and one of the supposed victims, Babita Choudhary, on stage during the press meet. He also pointed to an instance where a person named Nagaraj allegedly filled two deletion forms within 38 seconds at 4:07 am — which he said was “humanly impossible.”
According to Rahul Gandhi, the deletions were facilitated by automated programmes and executed through call-centre-style operations. “It was a planned, centralised operation,” he said.
The Congress leader also accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of shielding those behind the alleged scam. He claimed that the Karnataka CID had written 18 letters between February 2023 and September 2025 to the Election Commission, repeatedly seeking voter data linked to the case. However, Rahul Gandhi alleged, the poll body has failed to provide substantive responses, effectively stalling the investigation.
“The Chief Election Commissioner of India is protecting the people who have destroyed Indian democracy,” he charged.
Earlier allegations
This was Rahul Gandhi’s second press briefing in his “vote chori” campaign. On August 7, he had accused the Election Commission of colluding with the BJP to enable voter fraud. He said a 40-member Congress team had investigated electoral rolls in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura Assembly segment for six months and uncovered more than one lakh bogus entries. The alleged irregularities included fake voter IDs, mismatched family details, missing CCTV footage, and denial of access to voter records.
He further claimed that such manipulation was not limited to Karnataka but also affected elections in Maharashtra and Haryana.
