Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s freshly levelled vote chori allegations regarding Haryana electoral rolls have also fallen flat like before. On 5th November, the Congress scion put up another show to drop yet another ‘Hydrogen Bomb’, after the previous one failed to cause any damage. Gandhi alleged that 501 votes were fraudulently registered under a single address, House No. 265 in Hodal town of the Palwal district of Haryana.
As per reports, the property located in Ward No.21 of the town belongs to Sundar Singh, a local BJP leader and former municipal councillor. The residents of the locality said that most homes in the locality have been listed under House No. 265 due to a data entry error made by the Booth Level Officer (BLO) and not a voter scam.
According to Sundar Singh, his extended family, including his brothers and his grandfather’s brothers, lives in the same locality, and their houses have been marked as House No. 265. “We have five homes in a row here, all of which belong to my brothers and cousins,” Sundar Singh told India Today. “All these houses have been marked as House No. 265 in the voter list. Even homes belonging to my grandfather’s brothers in adjoining lanes are listed under the same number,” he added. He said that the same house numbers were an administrative error. However, he pointed out that some people in the locality have dual voter registrations, which should be corrected. “Many of them have become voters here while retaining their registration in Uttar Pradesh. That’s a serious concern and should be looked into,” Sundar Singh said.
House No. 265 has many families living at the same address
The House No. 265 also accommodates 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. His 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.
A woman named Shyamwati Singh, who is not associated with the Sorout family, also has her house number registered as House No. 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 then, they have been voting in elections with this address.
Locals said that they are genuine voters, irrespective of the error in their house addresses. Maintaining that the house number error was a clerical mistake, some locals pointed out that their Aadhaar Cards mentioned different house addresses, but in the electoral rolls, their house address mentions House No. 265.
Following Gandhi’s voter fraud allegations, the Palwal district administration launched a door-to-door verification drive to identify and correct discrepancies in the voter list. The Booth Level Officers were directed to visit every house in Ward No. 21 and verify the details by checking the documents to ensure accuracy in the voter lists.
Gandhi’s allegations of 66 voters registered at the same house address fact-checked
Rahul Gandhi had also made similar allegations regarding another house in the Hodal down, where, as alleged by him, 66 voters were registered at the same house number. The house referred to by Gandhi is in the Gurdhana village in Hodal town and belongs to BJP zila parishad vice-chairperson, Umesh Gurdhana.
Speaking to the Indian Express, Rajpal Gurdhana, the uncle of Umesh Gurdhana, said that the 66 voters Rahul Gandhi mentioned in his presser were 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 Gurdhana said.
He added that with a growing family, separate houses were constructed to accommodate family members on the five acres of land. However, all individual houses 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,” said Umesh Gurdhana.
It is clear from the statements of the residents of Hodal town that multiple voters have been registered at the same house number. However, they are genuine voters with valid IDs. Same house addresses in electoral rolls are indicative of an administrative error and not an electoral fraud, as alleged by Rahul Gandhi.
