Political heat in India rose further when Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched sharp counter attacks against Congress over the allegations of “vote chori” raised by the opposition the previous week.
Spearheaded by Anurag Thakur, the BJP accused Congress of utilizing ghuspaithi voters to capture key constituencies marking a tit-for-tat response from Rahul Gandhi’s earlier statements.
Questioning Congress Opposition on Voter Rolls Revision
The BJP has also criticized Congress for rejecting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls being done by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for Bihar.
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Anurag Thakur alleged that the Grand Old Party has always served especially targeted voter groups to broaden its scope for support as these all are termed as appeasement politics. The BJP levelled the biggest allegations of duplicate entries, non-existent addresses, invented family connections and mass voting irregularities against constituencies , such as Raebareli, Diamond Harbour and Kannauj.
Spotlight on Sonia Gandhi’s Voter Registration
Evolving the issue even more, the BJP raised questions over voter lists prior to Sonia Gandhi, former president of Congress by her acquiring Indian citizenship. Amit Malviya, head of the BJP IT cell, says Sonia Gandhi’s name first appeared on the 1980 parliamentary constituency electoral rolls of New Delhi, three years before her naturalization as an Indian citizen.
However, her name was removed from it in 1982 for public scrutiny before it’s back to the rolls in 1983.
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“This chain of events points clearly to an electoral register that has neither been kept intact nor smooth.” Malviya condemned on the social platform X, linking to Rahul Gandhi’s criticism of the Special Intensive Revision process and the opposition’s wider allegations of voter fraud.
Sonia Gandhi’s tryst with India’s voters’ list is riddled with glaring violations of electoral law. This perhaps explains Rahul Gandhi’s fondness for regularising ineligible and illegal voters, and his opposition to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
Her name first appeared… pic.twitter.com/upl1LM8Xhl
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) August 13, 2025
Genesis of the Electoral Again
The controversy got settled after Rahul Gandhi conducted a press conference on August 7, at which he put forth what he called evidence of wide-scale “vote chori.”
He claimed that in states like Maharashtra and Karnataka, unaccounted-voter-related issues like destruction of CCTV footage and refusal by ECI to share important voter-related data had emerged.
Intense wrangling between the two parties led to a heated debate over the authenticity and accuracy of rolls used to cast votes. While the BJP cites the historical discrepancies and the alleged misuse of voter lists, Congress continues to make claims on current electoral anomalies. This makes the arena even hotter before the coming major elections.
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