Congress leader Rahul Gandhi levelled fresh allegations of ‘vote chori’ (vote theft) against the BJP and Election Commission, this time in Haryana. Before he began his presentation-cum-press conference, the Congress social media handle captioned: “Hydrogen Bomb Is Loading..”.
Minutes later, Rahul came with a load of two quintals of papers. He alleged Haryana assembly elections held last year was ‘stolen’ with the help of 25 lakh fake voters, which comes to nearly 12.5 percent of total 2 crore voters in Haryana.
He alleged, names of 3.5 lakh voters were removed from rolls. He also claimed most of them were Congress supporters. Rahul said, Haryana electoral rolls had 19 lakh bulk voters, 5.21 lakh duplicate voters and 93 thousand invalid addresses.
Rahul alleged that the picture of a Brazilian model was used in several voter i-cards to cast votes 22 times in 10 different booths.
Rahul’s allegations were rubbished this morning by an Indian Express investigative report. The reporters went to some of the addresses in Hodal, Palwal district and Rai in Sonepat district, given by Rahul Gandhi at his press conference.
This is what the Indian Express reporters found: In Hodal, where Rahul alleged there were 66 voters in a single house owned by BJP zilla parishad vice-chairman Umesh Gudhrana, it was found that four generations of a family have been living together in House No. 150 in Gudhrana village.
Umesh Gudhrana’s uncle and brother said, over the years, they built homes on the same plot of land to which their father had shifted 80 years ago and the first pucca house was built in 1986.
Both his uncle and brother said, there was no question of vote theft, because the BLO had marked address for all voters as House No. 150 and most of the votes were cast without any difficulty.
In House No. 265, where Rahul had alleged, 501 voters existed at a single address, Indian Express reporter found that Ram Sourhit’s great grandfather had 25 to 30 acres of land. Over the years, the land was divided among six generations of the family. Nearly 200 hours and three private schools presently function from the same address, House no. 265.
In Rai of Sonipat district, where Rahul alleged that the picture of a Brazilian model appeared 22 times in voter i-cards across 10 polling booths, Indian Express reporter spoke to four women voters, Seema, Sweety, Sangeeta, Rashmi and Vimla.
The reporter spoke to three of the women voters personally and the fourth, over phone. All the four women voters said, they had valid voter i-cards and they cast their votes without any difficulty. When the reporter spoke to the local BLO Asha worker, she said she does not know how the Brazilian model’s photo appeared on the electoral rolls for these women voters.
Election Commission hit back at Rahul Gandhi and asked him to take all his evidence and papers to the High Court and file an appeal. EC said, till date, Congress party has not filed a single appeal after the final electoral roll was published in 2024.
EC pointed out that there were only 23 election petitions pending in Punjab and Haryana High Court.
On Rahul’s allegation that several addresses were shown as ‘0’ in electoral rolls, EC said, in many gram panchayats numbers are not alloted to houses, while in cities, municipal corporations do not allot house numbers in many localities. This was the reason why zero was shown as the address for voters.
To conclude, let me make it clear why Rahul Gandhi is raising the ‘vote chori’ issue. It has nothing to do with Election Commission. It relates to his political survival.
Rahul Gandhi wants to convey to his party that he is not responsible for repeated poll defeats faced by the Congress. The party lost because of ‘vote chori’.
Rahul knows the day Congress party workers and leaders realize that Rahul can no more win elections for them, a hunt would begin for a leader who can deliver victory.
In politics, nobody accepts a leader who loses elections.
In 2014, when Congress lost the Lok Sabha elections, Rahul blamed his party’s weaknesses as the main reson. In the next elections, he blamed misuse of ED, CBI and Income Tax by Modi government as the main reason for electoral defeats.
In subsequent elections, Rahul Gandhi blamed manipulation of electronic voting machines(EVM) as the main reason. And now he has started blaming the Election Commission.
The problem is, Congress had high hopes last year when Modi’s BJP won 240 seats in Lok Sabha elections. The Congress expected landslide wins in Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections, but faced defeats.
If Congress and its allies lose Bihar assembly polls this time, questions will be raised about Rahul’s leadership. This is the reason, why Rahul has come forward to say that the party is not actually losing and the elections are being stolen.
There is an apt Urdu couplet for this: “Tu Idhar Udhar Ki Baat Na Kar, Yeh Bataa Kaafilaa Kyun Lutaa, Mujhe Rahjanon Se Gilaa Nahin, Teri Rehbari Ka Sawaal Hai. (literal translation: Do not obfuscate, telll me why the caravan was looted, we have no complaints against robbers, it’s your leadership that is being questioned).

Bageshwar Baba’s clean Yamuna campaign

On November 5, Sikhs and Hindus all over the world celebrated Guru Nanak Jayanti (Guru Purab). In India, devout Hindus celebrated Dev Deepawali in Varanasi, Ayodhya, Mathura, Prayagraj and Haridwar near riverbanks.
The head of Bageshwar Dham Acharya Dhirendra Shastri took a holy dip in river Yamuna near Uttarkashi and vowed to cleanse the river. He will begin his Sanatan Hindu Ekta Padyatra from November 7 from Delhi to Vrindavan, to spread awareness among people about keeping Yamuna clean.
Acharya Dhirendra Shastri’s move is laudable. Yamuna is nearly 1,500 km long from Uttarakhand till Prayagraj. Its war in Uttarkashi is crystal clear, but when it reaches Delhi, the water turns black and muddy, unfit for even bathing. Hundreds of sewage drains fall into the river.
For the last 45 years, I have been only listening to claims about cleaning the Yamuna. Thousands of crores of rupees were spent, but Yamuna is still dirty.
No river can be clean unless there is awareness among the people. Governments alone cannot do this job without popular participation.
I hope Dhirendra Shastri will try his best to involve common people in this endeavour. Other religious gurus and saints should also join this campaign. Only then can we have clean rivers flowing near our cities and villages.
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