Rahul says Haryana poll stolen with 25 lakh fake votes, BJP calls him 'anti-India'

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged that the BJP “stole” the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections with the help of the Election Commission and called upon Gen Z to “restore democracy”.

Addressing a press conference, he alleged that one in eight — 25 lakh of the two crore — votes in the 2024 Haryana elections were fake, including that of “a Brazilian model who appeared 22 times in the electoral roll at the Rai booth”. The BJP hit back, saying that the Leader of the Opposition was part of a larger conspiracy to defame the country.

“Rahul targets the Army, the judiciary, the EC...Anti-India forces are using Rahul as a pawn to damage institutions,” Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said after Rahul claimed that the Congress’ “sure-shot sweep in Haryana was converted into a BJP victory through a well-crafted plan and the EC’s help”.

On Rahul’s allegations that “the PM, the Home Minister and the Haryana CM were not legitimately in government”, Rijiju said, “Rahul will not file objections to the electoral rolls; he will not petition the EC; he will not go to court; he will just shoot and scoot and will incite Gen Z.”

The minister said the youth were firmly with PM Narendra Modi as the country remained the fastest-growing economy.

On Rahul’s statement that the Congress would be able to make a similar presentation (about Bihar) as it made about Haryana, Rijiju said: “Rahul has conceded defeat in all elections to come, it’s clear he cannot toil as we did when we were in the Opposition for decades; we never defamed institutions.”

During his presentation, Rahul alleged that there was a systematic method to “steal elections” even as the BJP asked how opposition parties had won Punjab (AAP), Tamil Nadu (DMK), West Bengal (TMC), and Telangana and Himachal (Congress).

“Why did Rahul not cry vote chori then,” asked Rijiju after Rahul urged Gen Z to reclaim democracy.

“I want Gen Z to understand their future is being stolen from them... the PM, HM…are not legitimately in government. India’s Gen Z and the youth have the power to restore democracy peacefully and resist wholesale theft and murder of democracy,” said Rahul.

Rahul said he would work with the Opposition to oppose the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, adding that, “The real question is that the voter list — the foundation of democracy — has no integrity and so there’s no democracy.”

He played an October 6, 2024, video of Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini, who is heard saying “the BJP is forming a one-sided government and all arrangements are in place”, and said “we are presenting the proof of these arrangements”.

Rijiju, however, countered Rahul, saying that “CM Saini was implying the BJP’s organisational strength, discipline, cadres and booth management, efforts the BJP puts in the field, the way it slogs 24X7”.

He asked why Congress polling agents did not complain if duplicate votes were being cast and why no election petitions were filed about Haryana.

“There is a system for redressal. But Rahul will not resort to the lawful system. Didn’t the Congress have polling agents and counting agents,” Rijiju asked after Rahul said the Congress lost the Haryana elections by just 22,000 votes in eight constituencies and his party’s investigation uncovered over 25 lakh fake entries in the electoral rolls — “one in eight”.

Citing five exit polls that had predicted a Congress sweep in Haryana, Rahul said, “A sophisticated operation was executed to turn that victory into defeat”. He asked how the postal ballot trends differed from the main vote trends for the first time in Haryana.

Rahul said of the two crore votes cast in Haryana, 25 lakh — 12.5 per cent of the total electorate — were fake. He said the Congress’ analysis had shown that the eight tightest seats in Haryana were decided by just 22,779 votes, “less than one per cent of the fraudulent entries”.

The LoP said the party’s audit found 5,21,619 duplicate voters within the same constituencies, sharing identical names, relatives’ names and age. Another 1.2 lakh entries featured different names but the same photographs.

Rahul said, “The most shocking instance is from the Rai constituency, where the photo of a Brazilian model was used 22 times with names such as Seema, Sweety, Saraswati and Suman Devi. This is not a mistake. It’s a criminal operation.”

In Mulana, he said, a woman’s photo appeared 223 times across two booths. In Tigaon, another woman’s photo was used 100 times across 10 booths. “This is industrial-scale fraud,” he said.

Rahul said over 93,000 voters were listed with invalid addresses such as “House No. 0”, making verification impossible.

He said Haryana’s electoral rolls contained 19,26,351 “bulk voters”, cases where more than 20 people were registered under a single house number.

In Hodal, 66 voters were registered in a BJP Zila Parishad vice chairperson’s house, while 501 voters were shown at a house that did not exist.

He cited a video of Kerala BJP vice-president B Gopalakrishnan boasting that the party “adds voters even from Jammu and Kashmir if required to win tight seats”.