The Congress party, led by Rahul Gandhi, is leaving no stone unturned to mislead the Indian public through his dubious ‘vote chori’ conspiracy theories. The objective has been to tarnish the integrity of the Election Commission and rationalise the party’s unbeaten streak of losing elections.
Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi has recently accused the Election Commission of contributing to the creation of fake voters. At a press conference on Thursday, 7th August, he produced statistics from Karnataka’s Mahadevapura Assembly constituency in Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency, saying that several voter entries in the voter list had “house number 0” and that numerous voters were listed at the same address. He called it a major conspiracy to steal elections in favour of the BJP.
However, it has now come to light that Rahul Gandhi’s constituency, Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, also has the same kind of entries in its voter list. This is the seat that Rahul currently represents in Parliament, which his mother, Sonia Gandhi, held before him for multiple terms.
According to a report of Times Now Navbharat, the Rae Bareli Assembly constituency voter list under the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat has a huge number of “house number 0” voters, the very anomaly Rahul had pointed out in Karnataka.
Multiple voters at the same address
The report also shows that there are a number of instances where numerous voters are registered at the same location in Rae Bareli. For example, for one polling station, “House Number 8” has 27 voters registered. There are two other booths with “House Number 80” and “House Number 4”, each having 18 registered voters.
This is parallel to Rahul’s allegation in Mahadevapura, where he had accused 80 individuals of being registered at a single address. He had then held this up as evidence of extensive electoral cheating. The revelation of parallel trends in his constituency has raised questions: if Rahul is convinced that such entries are evidence of fraud elsewhere, then is the reverse also true in his election victory?
Why do ‘House number 0’ entries exist?
Election officials and analysts have observed that “house number 0” in the voters’ roll does not necessarily indicate voter fraud. In most villages, people have no records of their official house numbers, so they fill in a “0” as a placeholder in the voters’ list. This happens in both rural and urban India.
Also, several voters with the same address are not uncommon in India. Joint families, paying guests, or rental accommodations tend to result in lots of individuals being enrolled under a common address. The voter list is updated and edited regularly by the Election Commission to eliminate such stale entries.
The Mahadevapura case
Rahul’s strongest complaint was that a house in Mahadevapura had 80 duplicate voters enrolled. But when local Booth Level Officer (BLO) Muniratna was approached, he informed that there was no duplication.
This house, according to him, is mostly tenanted out, and the tenants keep changing every year. No family has resided there permanently for the last 14 years. Most individuals use their rental contract as an address to vote, but end up leaving the place. The BLO revealed that the list of individuals who are no longer staying at that location has already been submitted to the Election Commission, and names will be struck off.
As per the India Today factcheck report, a large number of voters are indeed registered with the address in question— House No. 35 in Muni Reddy Garden. However, the report shows that there is no scam in it, because it is a rental house, and various tenants who lived there at various times used the address to register themselves to the voter list.
The house is at present occupied by a food delivery worker named Dipankar. The present occupant of the house is originally from West Bengal and moved here one month ago.
The house in question is owned by one Jayaram Reddy, who claims to be a BJP voter-supporter. As per IndiaToday report, “He (Reddy) admitted that several tenants had lived there over the years and enrolled themselves as voters, but most had since moved out. Despite this, he said some return during elections to cast their votes.”
“He confirmed that the voter list shows 80 people at the address, even though the house could not physically accommodate them. He claimed many had relocated to other states or districts, including Odisha, Bihar, and Mandya, but acknowledged that “a few of them” still return during polls to vote,” the report adds.
However, the claims of ‘fraudulent’ voter registration or “vote chori” as alleged by Rahul Gnadhi, seem unfounded since BLO Munirathna has clarified that several migrant workers living in small houses along the IT corridor use rental agreements to obtain voter IDs. “These occupants are typically job seekers working as security guards, housekeepers, or domestic helpers. After acquiring voter IDs, many vacate the premises, but their names remain on the electoral rolls,” the India Today reported.
Many these voters who have moved from here, refuse to have their names removed saying that they need the voter ID and return to cast votes during elections. Contrary to Rahul Gandhi’s insinuation that these 80 ‘fraudulent’ voters live together in 10 sq. ft. house, although these people have their voter IDs registered at the same address, these voters, mostly security guards, house helps etc, are not living together at the same time. They came, stayed for some time and moved to other places for some or the other reason.
This does not imply any ‘fraud’ and also does not prove that they may or may not be essentially voting for the BJP. Clearly, Rahul Gandhi and his media cheerleader Rajdeep Sardesai have labelled migrant voters as ‘fraudulent voters’. Moreover, the SIR exercise conducted by EIC in Bihar, is specifically aimed at addressing issue of migrant voters. But Rahul Gandhi and Congress party have been opposing the move.
As reported earlier, Rahul Gandhi while alleging ‘vote chori’ had zeroed in on Mahadevapura, one of eight Assembly segments under Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency, claiming that over 1 lakh votes out of 6.5 lakh were either duplicated or linked to fake addresses.
As an example, Rahul Gandhi cited the case of one Gurkirat Singh Dang, whose name allegedly appeared on voter rolls at four different booths. From this single instance, he extrapolated a sweeping claim of “thousands” of such cases, without presenting any independently verified evidence. What Gandhi fails to acknowledge, however, is the very real and common phenomenon of intra-city and inter-state migration, particularly in urban hubs like Bengaluru, where people frequently shift residences for work, education, or housing constraints.
In such cases, it’s not unusual for individuals to be enrolled at their new address without having formally applied for the removal of their names from earlier rolls. This administrative overlap can result in multiple entries, but it does not automatically mean that the person voted more than once, let alone that they were part of any coordinated fraud. To conflate registration anomalies with actual voting malpractice is not just misleading; it grossly misrepresents how electoral rolls evolve in dynamic urban settings.
Moreover, Gandhi also conveniently overlooked the fact that parties receive voter rolls well in advance and are free to raise objections during the verification phase. If such large-scale discrepancies truly existed, why weren’t they flagged before polling day? Clearly, Congress is manufacturing outrage by alleging ‘vote chori’, while the party’s media allies are amplifying its conspiracy theories.
The political twist
What makes the story politically charged is the irony: Rahul Gandhi has been strongly criticising the Election Commission and the BJP for voter list tampering, but the same trends are evident in his constituency.
In Bihar, the Election Commission is already conducting a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise to purify the rolls of voters. Rahul has also attacked that process, but although invited by the EC to lodge written complaints, he has not yet lodged any formal evidence.
The scandal raises a fundamental question: are these “irregularities” evidence of intentional fraud, as Rahul asserts, or merely a function of administrative loopholes and India’s twisting voter registration system? For the present, the same problems Rahul highlighted in other seats appear to be present in Rae Bareli too, and that has triggered a new round of political debate.
Rahul Gandhi targets common man to amplify his ‘vote chori’ conspiracy theory
On Thursday (7th August), Rahul Gandhi conducted a press conference wherein he claimed that a man named Aditya Srivastava was voting in 3 different States simultaneously.
“He is Aditya Srivastava. His name is in the electoral rolls of Maharashtra, Karnataka (Bengaluru Urban) and Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow). His name appears 4 times. Same photo and same address,” the Congress leader alleged.
“And there are thousands of such people. 11,000 votes have been stolen like this,” he claimed. Rahul Gandhi defamed Aditya Srivastava by suggesting that the latter is somehow a part of a vote fraud scheme.
On Friday (8th August), the victim debunked the lies peddled by the Congress leader during a telephonic interview with India TV.
Aditya Srivastava hails from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. As such, his first voter ID was registered in that city. In 2016, he began living in Mumbai and had transferred the voter ID to his new address in Maharashtra.
He had cast his vote from Mumbai during the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Later, he shifted to Bengaluru for work in 2021 and re-transferred his voter ID to new address in Karnataka.
Aditya Srivastava had voted from Bengaluru during the 2024 Lok Sabha election. He had updated all details on the website of the Election Commission of India as per the facility provided by the nodal election body.
The common man lashed out at Rahul Gandhi for leaking his personal details to the world. He clarified that he never cast his vote in multiple States at one time.
Aditya Srivastava even dared Rahul Gandhi to show call records and CCTV footage from polling booths, which can prove that he cast votes in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka at the same time.
He pointed out that his EPIC number (10-digit unique identification number) on his voter ID cards has remained consistent during all constituency transfers, and there is no evidence of fraud.
A team from India TV visited the Mumbai address of Aditya Srivastava. The tenant confirmed that he left the apartment back in 2021. This coincides with the victim’s own testament of leaving the city in the same year.
OpIndia had previously reported how claims of Rahul Gandhi about Aditya Srivastava are not supported by publicly available data on Voter’s Services Portal on Election Commission.
Election Commission debunks lies of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi
On Friday (8th August), the Election Commission of India (ECI) debunked the lies peddled by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as part of his campaign to undermine the integrity of the nodal election body.
At the very onset, the Election Commission of India made it clear that the Supreme Court had turned down Congress’ petition for providing machine machine-readable voter list in 2019. As such, the nodal election body is under no compulsion to entertain this demand of the grand-old party.
It pointed out why CCTV footage is destroyed after 45 days and the rationale behind its preservation in specific case.
❌ The statements made are Misleading #ECIFactCheck
— Election Commission of India (@ECISVEEP) August 8, 2025
✅Read in detail in the image given? https://t.co/K1sKq1DvbU pic.twitter.com/tdqudyoXU2
The Election Commission of India stated, “Any aggrieved Candidate can file an election petition (EP) to challenge his election in the concerned High Court within 45 days. If an EP is filed, CCTV footage is retained; otherwise, it serves no purpose unless someone intends to breach voter privacy. For example, reviewing CCTV footage from 1 lakh polling stations would take 1 lakh days-that’s approximately 273 years-with no legal outcome.”
While responding to the claim of ‘committing mass fraud’, ECI pointed out how almost no appeals were made by the Congress party across 36 States and Union Territories, following the 2024 Lok Sabha election. This was despite the fact that the grand-old party had the legal sanction to challenge the nodal election body.
The Election Commission further stated, “Many such allegations are being made by Shri Rahul Gandhi and are being reported by the media, despite no written complaint ever being submitted by him. In the past as well, he has never personally sent a self-signed letter. For example, he raised the Maharashtra issue in December 2024. Subsequently, an advocate from AICC wrote to ECI. Our reply, dated 24 December 2024, is publicly available on ECI website. Yet, Shri Rahul Gandhi claims that ECI never responded.”
The nodal election body has therefore requested the Congress leader to submit his specific claims and objections against voters and sign the Declaration/Oath as per Rule 20(3)(b) of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
“If Shri Rahul Gandhi does not sign the Declaration, it would mean that he does not believe in his analysis, resultant conclusions and is making absurd allegations. In which case, he should apologise to the nation,” it concluded.
