Rahul Gandhi accuses CEC of shielding ‘vote chors’ in 'centralised deletion' scam

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday launched a sharp attack on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, alleging that he was protecting a “centralised criminal operation” to steal elections by deleting voters’ names in bulk.

Also read: Rahul Gandhi’s allegations on vote theft baseless, incorrect: Election Commission

At a press conference here, Gandhi pointed to a Karnataka CID investigation which, he said, had already resulted in an FIR. He claimed that the agency had written 18 times over 18 months seeking crucial technical details from the Election Commission, such as destination IP addresses, device ports and OTP trails, but the poll body had failed to provide the information. “Why are they not giving this? Because this will lead directly to the spot from where the operation is being run,” Gandhi alleged.

The Congress leader described the alleged voter deletions as a “systematic targeting” of Dalits, adivasis, minorities and OBCs, accusing “someone” of hijacking the process in state after state to reduce opposition votes. “This is not about the H-bomb, this is another milestone in showing how elections are being rigged,” he said.

Citing the 2023 assembly election in Aland, Karnataka, Gandhi claimed that 6,018 deletion applications were filed through impersonation and automated systems. The case came to light, he said, only because a booth-level officer noticed her uncle’s name missing from the rolls, confronted a neighbour listed as the applicant, and found that he had no knowledge of the deletion. “Neither the person alleged to have deleted the vote knew, nor the voter whose name was removed. Some other force hijacked the process,” Gandhi said.

He presented examples to illustrate the modus operandi. In one case, a fake login was allegedly created in the name of 63-year-old Godabai to delete 12 voters, though the attempt was stopped in time. “She had no idea this was happening. Mobile numbers from outside Karnataka were used. Whose numbers were these, and who was generating the OTPs?” Gandhi asked.

Another example involved a man named Suryakaant, who, Gandhi said, was shocked to discover that 12 deletions had been filed in his name in just 14 minutes. He was called on stage alongside Babita, whose name was allegedly struck off through his stolen identity. “I never received a message, I never filed any deletion. Babita only told me later,” Suryakaant said.

A third case involved a man named Naagraj, with two deletion applications filed in his name within 36 seconds at 4 am. “It is humanly impossible,” Gandhi remarked.

He claimed that the deletions were concentrated in Congress strongholds: “The top 10 booths with maximum deletions were Congress strongholds, and we had won eight of them in 2018. This was not a coincidence, it was a planned operation.”

According to Gandhi, the deletions were not the work of individuals but of specialised software that picked up names in sequence from voter rolls and used them for mass impersonation. “This is black and white, undeniable proof. The Chief Election Commissioner is shielding vote chors,” he said.