One after the other, the lies peddled by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in his ‘H-Files’ press conference are being busted. During the press conference, Gandhi claimed that there were 223 identical entries in a polling booth in the Dhakola village of Haryana’s Mulana assembly. Here, Congress improved its vote share significantly between 2019 and 2024.
“The Election Commission needs to tell us how many times this lady, whose name we don’t know, whose age we don’t know, but we know she occurs 223 times in two booths. In the Lok Sabha election, she was there 223 times in one booth, and then they decided to split it into two booths,” Gandhi said.
Rahul Gandhi was talking about booth number 63 of Dhakola village. This booth was split into booth number 63 and 64 for the Haryana assembly election in 2024. In 2019, booth number 63 represented Dhakola while 64 represented Rampur. However, for 2024 assembly elections, Dhakola was divided into Booths 63 and 64, meanwhile, Rampur moved to Booth 65 onwards.
However, as per an India Today report, the data shows that the Congress party not only managed to match BJP but also overtook its rival in Dhakola in 2024.
In 2019, Congress was trailing the BJP, however, Congress gained a clear lead in both the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. This essentially means that Dhakola voted decisively for Congress in the 2024 assembly and Lok Sabha elections, while the BJP’s numbers dropped by nearly half.
Misprint not malpractice: Mulana BLO
In Mulana, one Booth Level Officer told IndiaToday he was aware of the photo misprint Rahul Gandhi mentioned–the image of the former Brazilian model whom Gandhi described as Matheus Ferrero but was actually Larissa Nery.
“When I was surveying, I found the same photo had appeared three times. I corrected those who had submitted their own photos. But for others whose originals weren’t available, the misprint stayed,” the BLO said.
This repetition of a woman’s face on multiple entries, however, was a technical error not any deliberate voter duplication.
Rahul Gandhi claimed vote chori in Hodal and Rai, claim turned out to be misleading
During the press conference, Rahul Gandhi claimed that in the Palwal district’s Hodal, “We found 66 voters registered in a house belonging to a BJP zila parishad vice-chairperson, and 501 voters in a house which could not be found.”
The house Rahul Gandhi mentioned is in the Gurdhana village in Hodal. Rajpal Gurdhana, the uncle of BJP Zila Parishad vice-chairperson, Umesh Gurdhana, told Indian Express that 66 voters Rahul Gandhi mentioned in his presser are all his relatives who reside on the same plot of land.
“My father, along with his three brothers, shifted to Gudhrana from the nearby Siha village around 80 years ago, and all of them got married and started their families. We had 10 acres of land, where we used to stay on five acres and do farming on the rest. This is the oldest pucca house, built in 1986 – House Number 150,” Rajpal Said.
He added that with a growing family, individual houses were constructed to accommodate increasing family members on the five acres of land. However, all are identified with a common house number.
“Four generations of our family live together. There is no question of vote theft. My voter ID was made in 2009, and whoever from my family gets a voter ID made, the BLO writes the address as House Number 150 only,” Umesh Gurdhana told IE.
Similar is the truth of House Number 265, mentioned by Rahul Gandhi, wherein he alleged 501 voters were illegally registered.
This address houses eight members of the Sorout family. A Ram Sorout, a resident of the address, said that his great-grandfather had 25-30 acres of land in the village, which the family divided into plots and gradually sold off.
Ram Sorout’s son, Pawan Sorout, said that at present, 200 houses and three private schools are situated on the piece of land in question. He added that all voters here have 265 as their registered house number.
However, one Shyamwati Singh, who is not associated with the Sorout family, also has her house number registered as 265. Residing with her husband and two children, Shyamwati Singh said that her family bought a piece of land here in 2013, adding that since the,n they have been voting in elections with this address.
Thus, Rahul Gandhi’s claim that fake voters have been registered at the same address in Hodal is false. While multiple voters are indeed registered on a single house address, they are not fake or illegal voters. The Congress leader essentially revealed only half-truths, which suited his ‘Vote Chori’ narrative.
