At a sprawling bungalow within the coronary heart of the Indian capital, a number of “lifeless” voters collect round a desk to drink tea with the nation’s opposition chief Rahul Gandhi.
“I heard you aren’t alive any extra,” Gandhi asks Ramikbal Ray, a resident from the japanese state of Bihar. Ramikbal confirms with a wry smile that he has been “declared lifeless regardless of being alive.”
The 66-year-old man says his identify was not included within the draft electoral rolls printed by the Election Fee of India (ECI), the federal ballot physique in control of conducting elections on the planet’s largest democracy.
Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that controls the principle opposition Congress occasion, has accused the ECI of serving to prime minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) win elections throughout the nation by manipulating the voters’ rolls. The BJP, which carried out under expectations within the nationwide elections in 2024 and needed to depend on allies to kind a authorities, went on to win a number of state polls with relative ease.
The BJP and the ECI have each denied the rigging fees.
Ramikbal is among the many 6.5 million Indian voters whose names have been excluded from the draft electoral rolls by ECI. These voters had been both assumed to be absentees, lifeless, or have shifted forward of an important vote in Bihar, India’s third most populous state.
A minimum of seven of them had been invited by Gandhi to his bungalow in Delhi the place a desk was laid out to serve tea to those “lifeless” Indian voters. In accordance with the opposition, many of the eradicated voters had been from Raghopur village – a voting constituency of one in every of Modi’s key rivals Tejashwi Yadav from the regional Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
“There have been many fascinating experiences in life, however I by no means bought the possibility to have tea with ‘lifeless folks’. For this distinctive expertise, thanks Election Fee,” Gandhi quips.
He asks the “lifeless” voters if they’ve toured Delhi, as a result of as ghosts, they won’t be required to buy tickets on the metropolis’s vacationer spots.
Hours later, Gandhi tells The Unbiased that he and his occasion had been seeing “severe discrepancies and disconnects” within the newest election outcomes. Gandhi, who has launched a “vote adhikar yatra” (voting rights march) throughout Bihar to focus on his claims of voters’ listing manipulation, is joined by Subodh Kumar, one other “deceased Indian voter”.
“I’ve been declared lifeless by India’s ballot physique, even once I forged my vote final 12 months within the normal meeting elections and served as a polling agent as properly,” Kumar says, as a whole lot within the crowd who had turned up for Gandhi’s march hear. Polling brokers are consultant of a politician combating elections.
“The sport we’re enjoying is rigged. Modi and his occasion are the one ones on the planet who don’t face anti-incumbency, apparently,” Gandhi says at a briefing with reporters at his official residence in central Delhi.
In accordance with his allegations, Modi’s occasion stole the mandate in at the least three state elections within the current previous – Maharashtra, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh. Gandhi warns rigging will occur within the upcoming polls in Bihar, dates for which haven’t been introduced however will doubtless happen by the top of this 12 months.
The ballot physique eliminated the 6.5 million names of Indian voters after a particular intensive revision (SIR) it mentioned was geared toward eliminating lifeless, duplicate, or migrated voters. Gandhi claims the lacking voters from the listing might be utilized by the BJP to say victory in Bihar.
ECI says the SIR, a door-to-door verification drive carried out between 25 June and 26 July, had reached all 78.9 million registered voters within the japanese state. The train was the primary intensive replace since 2003 and was lengthy overdue, however its timing – mere months earlier than state elections – has been termed suspicious by former election physique officers and opposition leaders within the nation.
The Bihar revision is now on the centre of a wider political storm in India, amplified by Gandhi accusing the Election Fee of enabling large-scale voter suppression to spice up Modi’s successful possibilities.
Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar defended the ballot physique, asking if it could actually come below affect (of politicians) and permit the lifeless, those that have migrated, or have registered themselves as electors at a number of locations, be included within the voters’ listing, in accordance with The Hindu newspaper.
“Is not a pure voter listing being ready by the Election Fee via a clear course of, the muse for honest elections and a robust democracy?” he mentioned.
An inside investigation by Gandhi’s occasion into the Bengaluru Central constituency in not too long ago held state meeting elections within the southern state of Karnataka from 2023 allegedly confirmed at the least 100,250 votes being “stolen”.
Of those, at the least 11,965 had been allegedly duplicate voters – which implies an individual carrying a single vote was registered in 4 completely different constituencies. The Congress allegedly discovered at the least 40,009 voters who had been registered with the Indian election physique with faux and invalid addresses. For instance, electoral lists shared by the Congress with The Unbiased confirmed Indian voters registered at non-existent addresses, labelled “Home quantity – 0”. In different instances, made-up names had been used for members of the family of voters.
Within the third class, at the least 10,452 bulk voters in a single home had been registered. “A home as huge as this carpet has 80 folks registered dwelling there,” Gandhi says, pointing to a 8-inch by 8-inch carpet, referring to smaller village properties. “Usually occasions, our workforce discovered these homes occupied by BJP leaders,” he says.
In different classes, at the least 4,132 voters had been allegedly registered with invalid photographs or no photographs in any respect and at the least 33,692 voters via the misuse of Kind 6 – which is supposed for first-time voters. Congress claims the Indian ballot physique registered folks aged 90 as first-time voters however proof of their existence has not been discovered.
Congress says it discovered a 70-year-old lady named Shakun Rani who has stuffed Kind 6 as a first-time Indian voter twice in two months, and voted twice as properly.
These 100,000 votes re-emerged the place BJP has received in Bengaluru Central’s Mahadevpura.
“The BJP trailed Congress within the different seven meeting segments of Bangalore Central – 100,570 faux voters in Mahadevapura received them this Lok Sabha seat,” mentioned a file by the Congress shared with The Unbiased.
The Unbiased has reached out to the ECI for a response to the claims by Congress leaders.
Former federal minister and BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad accused Gandhi of spreading “canards” and making baseless “vote theft” allegations at a press convention on the BJP state headquarters.
Prasad mentioned within the 2024 Lok Sabha (decrease home of Indian parliament) election, the regional Samajwadi Occasion received 37 seats in Uttar Pradesh, whereas BJP received 33, and Congress six.
“Even in that election, the Election Fee was the identical. If folks vote for them, then the Fee is ok, but when they lose, then the Fee is unhealthy – how can this logic work?” he asks.
“If the folks don’t vote for Rahul Gandhi, what can anybody do? In Haryana, Delhi, and Maharashtra meeting elections, BJP received as a result of the folks noticed via his lies,” Prasad says.
In Bihar’s Sasaram, the place Gandhi is replicating his Unite India March with a marketing campaign path, he requested a crowd: “You agree that they’re stealing your votes… Does Bihar agree?” The group of his occasion supporters is heard roaring again: “Sure.”
“Prime minister Narendra Modi, union house minister Amit Shah and the election commissioners had been all complicit within the conspiracy of snatching the votes of the folks of Bihar,” Gandhi provides.
The Congress chief says he’s relying on the general public to problem the Election Fee and rally in opposition to vote theft, concentrate on their voting rights, and see discrepancies if their names or addresses are manipulated.
“We’re fairly assured that rigging is affecting elections after elections in India. We aren’t eager to destroy the Election Fee’s credibility,” he says.
“There’s a sturdy undercurrent in India in opposition to this and we hope voters in Bihar will problem this rigging.”
