‘One lakh stolen votes’: Rahul Gandhi accuses EC-BJP nexus of rigging Bengaluru seat

In one of his most scathing attacks on the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on August 7 alleged a “criminal conspiracy” to rig the Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka’s Bangalore Central seat, claiming over one lakh fake votes were engineered through five distinct methods.

Armed with a detailed presentation based on months-long data analysis from the Mahadevapura Assembly segment — part of the Bangalore Central parliamentary constituency — Gandhi accused the ECI of colluding with the BJP in executing what he described as “a crime against the Constitution and the Indian flag.”

“This is not an allegation. This is evidence,” he declared at a press conference in New Delhi, adding: “One lakh two hundred and fifty fake votes were created. This is how the Bangalore Central seat was stolen.”

The BJP had won the seat by a margin of 32,707 votes. Gandhi claimed that the party’s margin in Mahadevapura alone was a staggering 1,14, 046 — an outlier that prompted the Congress to dig deeper.

‘Five ways the vote was stolen’

Gandhi’s presentation outlined five methods allegedly used to manipulate the voter list:

• 11,965 duplicate voters
• 40,009 voters with fake or invalid addresses
• 10,452 voters listed in bulk at single addresses
• 4,132 invalid or missing voter photographs
• 33,692 misused Form 6 entries for new voters

In some instances, Gandhi alleged, one person was listed in up to four polling booths, voting multiple times across states including Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh. “There are thousands like this,” he said, showing a sample voter ID with the same photograph repeated across locations.

‘House No. 0’ and breweries as homes

Citing examples of fabricated addresses, Gandhi showcased voter entries where the address was listed as “House No. 0” or had bizarre entries under “father’s name,” such as gibberish like “ilsdfhug” and “dfoigoidf.”

He alleged that some commercial establishments, including a brewery called "153 Beire Club," were listed as residential addresses for dozens of voters. “Nobody lives there. When we go and ask them who these people are, the response is ‘never heard of them’,” he said.

In one striking example, he pointed to a single-room home listed as the residence for 80 voters. When Congress workers attempted field verification, they were allegedly assaulted.

Form 6 ‘fraud’: Elderly voters registered as first-timers

Gandhi also highlighted what he called “systematic misuse” of Form 6, which is meant for registering new voters. In one case, he said, a 70-year-old woman named Shakun Rani was registered twice within two months and allegedly voted in two booths. “There are 33,692 such voters, all registered as new voters — but many are senior citizens,” he said.

‘This is not local. It’s nationwide.’

Calling the alleged fraud part of a larger national pattern, Gandhi asserted, “What we see in Mahadevapura is just one slice. This is happening in state after state. We have studied it, and we are convinced this is being orchestrated on a massive scale.”

He claimed the BJP was able to dodge anti-incumbency in various states due to systematic electoral manipulation. “Modi is the Prime Minister by just 25 seats. If even a few of these are rigged like Mahadevapura, it changes everything,” he said.

In Haryana, for instance, he cited a margin of 22,779 votes between BJP and Congress and hinted that similar manipulation may have occurred there too.

Judiciary must act, EC is ‘destroying evidence’: Rahul

Gandhi alleged that the Election Commission is not cooperating in providing data and is “actively destroying evidence.” He called for urgent judicial intervention.

“This is criminal. The EC is not preserving hard disk data. They are erasing the democratic record of our country. The judiciary must step in now,” he warned.