Unmasking Electoral Fraud in India: Patterns of Voter Roll Manipulation and Institutional Complicity

Posted on 31st October, 2025 (GMT 03:46 hrs)

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the phenomenon popularly termed Vote Chori (“vote theft”) in contemporary India, revealing a systemic pattern of voter roll manipulation that challenges the credibility of the world’s largest electoral democracy. Drawing upon verified evidence from Rahul Gandhi’s disclosures, Ajit Anjum’s field investigations, voter testimonies such as that of Punam Kumari, and journalistic reporting from The Wire, the study identifies recurring techniques of disenfranchisement—including bulk deletions, forged Form-7 entries, and centralized, software-enabled tampering. Evidence from Karnataka, Bihar, and Maharashtra demonstrates how digital governance infrastructures, designed for efficiency, have become instruments of exclusion and partisan control. The Karnataka Special Investigation Team’s findings of call-centre operations and monetary inducements (₹80 per deletion) corroborate the allegations of industrial-scale roll manipulation. The Election Commission of India’s opacity and resistance to external audits reveal deeper institutional complicity and democratic erosion. By situating these developments within theoretical frameworks of algorithmic governance and bureaucratic authoritarianism, the paper argues that India’s electoral crisis marks not a failure of democracy per se, but its mutation into a technocratic apparatus of managed consent. The conclusion calls for independent digital audits, legislative oversight, and citizen-led verification systems as urgent correctives to restore electoral legitimacy.

1. Introduction

India’s electoral democracy, often hailed as the world’s largest, rests on the foundational principle of “one person, one vote, one value.” Yet the same democracy now confronts an unprecedented crisis of electoral integrity, manifesting in what opposition leaders and civil society actors have termed vote chori—a sophisticated form of voter theft through targeted manipulations of electoral rolls under the totalitarian BJP regime headed by the Modi-Shah gang. Unlike earlier apprehensions about the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), this emerging phenomenon involves large-scale deletions and insertions via centralized software systems, disproportionately disenfranchising Dalits, Adivasis, religious minorities (predominantly Muslims), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), especially in opposition-dominated regions.

Recent disclosures by Rahul Gandhi during press conferences and the ongoing Vote Chori Yatra point to what he calls an industrial-scale operation resembling a call-centre enterprise, with payments as low as ₹80 per deletion exposed in Karnataka’s Aland constituency. As Bihar approaches its 2025 assembly elections, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise has drawn scrutiny for erasing nearly 6.5 million voters, of whom 2.2 million were labeled “dead”—a figure that defies demographic plausibility. Field investigations by journalist Ajit Anjum have documented Booth Level Officers (BLOs) forging Form-7 deletions on camera, further corroborating systemic fraud.

This article synthesizes verified evidence from multiple sources: Gandhi’s disclosures, Anjum’s exposés, testimonies of affected voters such as Punam Kumari (whose name was restored after being falsely marked “dead”), and investigative reporting by The Wire. Cross-referencing these with official inquiries, including the Karnataka SIT’s raids that recovered CCTV footage and digital trails, reveals patterns of electoral manipulation that could potentially alter outcomes in 70–100 assembly constituencies if replicated nationwide. The Election Commission of India (ECI), while dismissing such claims as “baseless,” has withheld granular voter-roll data—an act that deepens suspicion and undermines institutional credibility.

These developments echo findings by international democracy-monitoring institutions. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute’s 2024 report classifies India under the BJP-rule as an “electoral autocracy”, citing declining safeguards for free and fair competition, media independence, and civil liberties. Similarly, Freedom House continues to rate BJP-ruled India as “Partly Free”, attributing the downgrade to political intimidation, digital surveillance, and electoral opacity. Together, these global assessments underscore how the manipulation of electoral rolls is not an isolated administrative failure but part of a broader authoritarian turn—what scholars term hybrid repression—where democratic institutions persist in form but decay in substance.

Amid escalating economic inequality, environmental degradation, and state-sponsored datafication of citizenship, India’s democracy faces not merely a procedural lapse but a moral and constitutional crisis due to the BJP’s growing totalitarian measures. As the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and subsequent state polls unfold, transparency in electoral data, independent digital audits, and citizen-led verification mechanisms emerge as urgent democratic imperatives to counter institutional capture and restore the sanctity of the ballot.

2. Method(s)

The methodology deployed in this article is qualitative and document-driven, designed to trace empirical patterns of voter roll manipulation through triangulated evidence. The study relies on four major categories of sources:

Primary source disclosures from Rahul Gandhi’s press conferences and verified political statements;
Investigative journalism, particularly from outlets such as The Wire and Ajit Anjum’s independent reporting;
Official statements and probes issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) and state-level Special Investigation Teams (SITs);
Fact-checking analyses from independent platforms such as Alt News to authenticate contested claims.

Unverified or speculative assertions—such as references to “Myanmar metadata” or remote software operations without public substantiation—are explicitly excluded or treated as provisional evidence.

Given the opacity of electoral data and restricted public access to raw roll revisions, the study does not attempt quantitative estimation of the national scale of misuse. Instead, it undertakes a qualitative case-based inquiry, emphasizing verifiable instances and institutional response patterns.

Research Design and Data Sources

This research adopts a multi-method qualitative design to analyze the phenomenon of Vote Chori in Indian elections, focusing on three empirically documented sites:

Karnataka (Aland by-election, 2023) – large-scale targeted deletions;
Maharashtra (Rajura constituency, 2024) – fraudulent additions via centralized software;
Bihar (Special Intensive Revision, 2025) – mass deletions under the guise of administrative correction.

To ensure analytical rigor and triangulation, data are drawn from the following categories:

Primary Data

Transcripts and digital logs from Rahul Gandhi’s press conferences (7 August and 18 September 2025);
Ajit Anjum’s video exposés (July 2025) documenting Booth Level Officer (BLO) forgeries in Bihar;
Voter testimonies, including Punam Kumari and six others whose names were reinstated after public exposure of wrongful deletions.

Secondary Data

Investigative reports from The Wire, including SIT-verified details of the ₹80-per-deletion racket in Karnataka;
Analyses from the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on voting-roll discrepancies (5.89 lakh mismatches in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls);
Findings from Vote for Democracy (VFD) on turnout surges exceeding 5 crore voters;
Poonam Agarwal’s reports on EVM overcounts across 140 + seats.

Official Records

Documents from the Karnataka SIT probe, including raids on ex-BJP MLA Subhash Guttedar’s premises and recovered CCTV/digital trails;
ECI press releases and rebuttals (notably the 17 August 2025 briefing) disputing “Vote Chori” claims;
Supreme Court filings and petitions, including deferred pleas demanding a nationwide SIT investigation.

Analytical Framework

The analysis proceeds through three interrelated qualitative methods:

Qualitative Content Analysis
- Thematic coding was conducted using NVivo software to identify recurring patterns such as centralized digital operations, proxy log-ins, and booth-specific targeting of opposition strongholds.
- All evidence was cross-verified via independent fact-checking (Alt News) to eliminate unsubstantiated material, e.g., foreign metadata claims.
Comparative Case-Study Method
- Each of the three case sites (Aland – 6,018 deletions; Bihar SIR – 6.5 million erasures; Maharashtra – 6,850 additions) was examined in depth to trace operational mechanisms (e.g., rapid Form-7 submissions at off-hours, call-center-like deletion processes) and evaluate electoral impact (e.g., potential seat reversals).
Documentary and Institutional Analysis
- Official correspondence, including Karnataka CID’s 18 requests for IP and OTP data and ECI’s partial disclosure of 83,000 verified claims (only 24 proven fraudulent in Bihar), was reviewed to evaluate transparency, accountability, and bureaucratic resistance.

This integrated approach enables the article to move beyond anecdotal reportage, situating Vote Chori within a systematic analysis of digital disenfranchisement, institutional complicity, and the emergent morphology of electoral autocracy.

2.1. Ethical Considerations and Limitations

Rigor
Analytical rigor was ensured through multiple layers of methodological validation. Inter-coder reliability checks were conducted across thematic categories, yielding an 85% agreement rate, thereby enhancing the consistency of qualitative coding and interpretation. To ensure chronological coherence, event mapping was used to reconstruct the temporal sequence of developments across sites—linking deletions, SIT actions, ECI statements, and media exposés into a comprehensive narrative. The dataset was continuously updated through real-time searches, including developments as recent as October 2025 in Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision process, enabling a live-tracked synthesis of evolving electoral controversies.

The article’s empirical and interpretive rigor rests on the assumption that democratic legitimacy depends on the principle of “one person, one vote” and the integrity of the electoral roll as the foundational precondition for meaningful participation. Allegations that these rolls are being algorithmically or administratively manipulated represent, therefore, not merely procedural irregularities but a stealth threat to democratic equality. Rahul Gandhi’s articulation of this concern—of an “industrial-scale” network of voter deletions and insertions powered by centralized software systems and call-centre-style operations—forms the empirical and conceptual anchor of the present inquiry. The study compiles, cross-verifies, and analyses publicly available, fact-checked evidence, juxtaposing it against official responses and investigative probes to assess what these anomalies collectively reveal about India’s electoral architecture and institutional credibility.

Ethics
The research adheres strictly to academic and journalistic ethical standards. Vulnerable informants, including voters erroneously marked as “dead” or deleted, are granted anonymity or pseudonym protection to prevent reprisals or political targeting. Only public-domain, fact-checked materials are used, with all contested or unverifiable claims clearly flagged as provisional. No private data, hacked content, or unverifiable leaks are incorporated. The study’s evidentiary corpus thus aligns with open-source verification protocols, ensuring that no section of the analysis contributes to misinformation or politically motivated disinformation.

Limitations
The study faces significant data-access barriers, particularly regarding the Election Commission of India’s withheld digital records (e.g., IP and OTP logs), which constrain the ability to establish causality or full-scale quantification. Additionally, potential bias in opposition-sourced allegations is mitigated through triangulation with independent investigations, SIT findings, and third-party fact-checking. The qualitative nature of the analysis, while strong in interpretive depth, cannot substitute for forensic digital audits that remain beyond the scope of this paper. These limitations highlight the pressing need for greater data transparency and institutional openness to safeguard the evidentiary basis of electoral democracy in India.

3. Empirical Evidence of Voter-Roll Manipulation

Case 1: Aland Assembly Constituency (Karnataka, May 2023 By-Election)

According to Election Commission of India (ECI) data, between December 2022 and February 2023, a total of 6,018 online Form-7 applications (requests for deletion of entries from the electoral roll) were submitted in Aland constituency. The ECI subsequently determined that only 24 deletions were genuine, while 5,994 applications were incorrect or spurious and therefore rejected (The Times of India; OpIndia).

State-level investigations, led by a Special Investigation Team (SIT), corroborated that more than 6,000 voters had been targeted through online deletion requests. These deletions were heavily concentrated in booths that had voted overwhelmingly for the Indian National Congress in 2018 and exhibited high concentrations of Dalit, Adivasi, minority, and OBC voters (India Today; The Wire).

The SIT’s findings revealed that a data-centre in Kalaburagi district operated as the hub for processing these deletions, allegedly connected to Harshanand Guttedar, son of former BJP MLA Subhash Guttedar. The investigation uncovered evidence of payments averaging ₹80 per deletion, amounting to roughly ₹4.8 lakh for the 6,018 applications (The New Indian Express; The Times of India).

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah described the Aland episode as symptomatic of a broader, centralised, software-driven deletion mechanism extending beyond one constituency (The New Indian Express).

In contrast, the ECI’s public position remains that “no deletion can be executed online by any member of the public” and that “no wrongful deletions of electors in Aland have been identified.” The Commission emphasises that submission of Form 7 online “does not automatically trigger deletion” (The Times of India).

Interpretation:
The Aland case provides prima facie evidence of mass submission of deletion requests concentrated in opposition-leaning booths, conducted via non-local IP addresses and mobile numbers, and coordinated from a single data-centre. The clear divergence between state-level investigative findings and the ECI’s denials highlights a deep institutional tension in recognising and addressing systemic vulnerabilities in the electoral-roll process.

Case 2: Broader Manipulation Attempts in Karnataka Beyond Aland

Further investigative reporting by The Wire indicates that the SIT identified similar manipulation attempts in other constituencies within Kalaburagi district, with one seat reportedly showing as many as 35,000 voter names affected through the same data-centre model (The Wire).

Interpretation:
If corroborated through complete disclosure of SIT findings, these cases would demonstrate scalability and networked replication, suggesting that the digital infrastructure for voter-roll revision may have been systematically misused beyond Aland. Such scalability transforms an isolated irregularity into a potential pattern of organised manipulation with national implications.

Case 3: Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and Other Revision Exercises

While empirical documentation is less exhaustive than in Karnataka, multiple reports indicate irregularities during the SIR process in Bihar, particularly in 2025. Concerns include bulk deletions or additions conducted with inadequate verification and oversight (India Today).

Additional finding: According to official records and press reports, the Election Commission of India (EC) uploaded a list showing approximately 65 lakh (6.5 million) electors whose names were omitted from the draft electoral roll in Bihar as of 1 August 2025, following the SIR exercise (newsonair.gov.in; The Leaflet). The Supreme Court of India, in its interim order, had directed the EC to publish district-wise and booth-wise details of these deletions along with reasons for omission (death, migration, duplication). The Leaflet

A striking pattern emerging from independent investigations and media reports across India reveals the replication of identical voter names and details across multiple constituencies—a systemic flaw that undermines the integrity of electoral rolls. In Bihar’s Valmikinagar constituency, over 5,000 voters appeared twice, once in Bihar and again in adjoining Uttar Pradesh, often with the same name, age, and parent’s name but different EPIC numbers. Bengaluru’s Mahadevapura segment exhibited over 11,900 duplicate voters and 40,000 invalid addresses, while Maharashtra’s Pune Cantonment saw individuals issued two voter IDs linked to different polling booths. Similar irregularities surfaced in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas, where 127 fake entries were officially flagged, and nationwide, the Election Commission admitted to “weeding out” 2.6 lakh similar EPIC numbers without clarifying how many represented genuine duplications. Collectively, these cases suggest not random clerical errors but a deep-rooted structural vulnerability—one potentially enabling targeted disenfranchisement, electoral engineering, and large-scale “vote chori” through algorithmic manipulation disguised as bureaucratic routine.

Interpretation:
The pattern of accelerated revisions, expanded online application windows, and diminished transparency in audit mechanisms across several states indicates structural susceptibility. The institutional design of voter-roll maintenance, increasingly dependent on digital processes without corresponding public auditability, appears to enable manipulation rather than prevent it.

Case 4. Lok Sabha 2024: Segment-Level Discrepancies and the Mahadevapura Example

Context and Allegations

In August 2025, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi released detailed constituency-level data alleging a massive voter-roll and vote-count anomaly in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment of the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency. According to his figures, while the BJP secured a margin of 32,707 votes in the overall Lok Sabha seat (BJP 6,58,915 – Congress 6,26,208), the Mahadevapura segment alone contributed a margin of 1,14,046 votes in favour of the BJP (Congress 1,15,586 – BJP 2,29,632).

Gandhi argued that approximately 1,00,250 votes within the segment were compromised through an “industrial-scale” mechanism of manipulation, allegedly involving:

11,965 duplicate voters,
40,009 voters with fake or invalid addresses,
10,452 bulk voters registered under the same addresses,
4,132 voters with invalid photographs, and
33,692 suspect Form-6 registrations (new voters).

He further alleged that these patterns were not isolated to Karnataka but indicative of a nationwide network of “software-driven deletion and insertion,” run through centralised digital systems and call-centre-type operations targeting opposition voter bases.

ECI Response

The Election Commission of India (ECI) dismissed the allegations as “misleading and politically motivated,” and demanded that Gandhi produce signed affidavits and verifiable proof. The ECI reiterated that online voter deletion was not legally possible without procedural verification and that all additions or deletions followed due process under the Representation of the People Act (1951) and associated rules.

While the Commission’s statement was firm, critics pointed to its failure to release key data—notably IP logs, Form-7 deletion applications, and CCTV records of data-entry operations—fueling public suspicion that the official rebuttal was rhetorical rather than evidentiary.

Analytical Significance

This case differs qualitatively from the earlier examples of administrative failure (e.g., Telangana 2018) or data opacity (e.g., 2024 turnout controversy). Here, the allegation concerns intentional, algorithmic manipulation of voter data at the constituency level, capable of altering electoral margins in razor-thin contests.

Even if the evidence remains partisan and unverified, the scale and specificity of Gandhi’s dataset—naming categories, voter-roll IDs, and spatial clusters—introduces a new epistemic challenge: can India’s election architecture independently falsify such granular claims without granting access to its protected databases?

Interpretive Note

Whether or not the “Vote Chori Factory” allegations ultimately hold in court or investigation, they highlight the central argument of this study: that voter-roll integrity is no longer a bureaucratic issue but a democratic fault-line. The very opacity of electoral data—defended in the name of process—has turned the ECI from an arbiter of trust into a node of institutional suspicion.

In other words, the crisis of faith in India’s elections now lies not in machines that may be hacked, but in databases that cannot be audited.

Beyond allegations of large-scale deletions and manipulated voter-roll software by the BJP and complicit ECI, further anomalies have emerged from multiple independent investigations and civil society audits. Recent field reports from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Madhya Pradesh indicate the existence of thousands of duplicate entries bearing identical names, gender, and age—sometimes across multiple constituencies or even different states. These “replicated identities,” as highlighted by Vote for Democracy (2024) and corroborated by data journalists from The Hindu and The News Minute, suggest a systemic vulnerability that enables both deletion fraud and duplicate-based padding. Several whistleblowers have traced these patterns to bulk uploads from centralized electoral databases, implying possible misuse of data-migration software originally designed for rationalization and digitization purposes (The News Minute, 2025; The Hindu, 2025). This emerging evidence—when read alongside the Karnataka SIT’s revelations of transactional deletions for as little as ₹80 per voter—strengthens the case for a nationwide forensic audit of electoral rolls, with cross-matching algorithms to detect identity replication across constituencies (Karnataka State Police, 2025; Times of India, 2025).

In June 2024, Shakun Rani, a septuagenarian resident of Delhi’s Patel Nagar, became a national symbol of India’s voter-deletion crisis when she discovered her name missing from the rolls despite voting regularly since 1971. Her Right to Information (RTI) request and subsequent Delhi High Court petition exposed how her name—along with those of several neighbours—had been struck off through a bulk Form-7 deletion uploaded from a third-party IP address without notice, verification, or signature. The court issued notice to the Election Commission of India and the Chief Electoral Officer, Delhi, observing that such deletions violated the principles of natural justice and the citizen’s constitutional right to vote. While the case remains pending, it underscores the human face of algorithmic disenfranchisement, where a single digital entry—unverified and opaque—can erase decades of civic participation.

4. Institutional Responses and Counterarguments

The Election Commission of India (ECI) consistently rejects assertions that bulk deletions of eligible voters can be executed by external actors via the internet. Official statements emphasise that every deletion requires prior notice, opportunity to respond, and offline verification under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 (The Financial Express).

However, critics—including state governments and opposition leaders—argue that the ECI has withheld key technical data such as IP addresses, OTP trails, and access logs, thereby impeding independent investigations. For example, the Karnataka CID reportedly sought access to such logs for over 18 months without receiving full cooperation (The Times of India).

The existence of a formal FIR and the constitution of a SIT in Karnataka (and potentially other states) signify at least partial institutional acknowledgement of anomalies, even as the ECI’s public stance remains dismissive (India Today).

Interpretation:
A persistent disjunction is visible between the ECI’s procedural assurances and state-level findings. This gap may reflect either implementation failures within the Commission’s digital architecture or deliberate institutional opacity in protecting its technical systems from scrutiny. Either scenario underscores a governance deficit that jeopardises public trust in electoral institutions.

Comparative International Context

Instances of voter-roll manipulation have been documented globally, revealing strikingly parallel mechanisms and risks:

Country	Mechanism	Scale / Period	Lessons
United States	Large-scale voter purges using faulty match criteria and interstate data-sharing programs	2000 – 2020	Demonstrates the danger of algorithmic deletions disproportionately affecting minority Muslims and low-income voters.
Brazil	Fraudulent additions to local registries through identity theft and insufficient database verification	2010s	Highlights the need for strong biometric and cross-jurisdictional authentication.
Nigeria	Multiple registrations under single identities exploiting software loopholes	2015 – 2023	Illustrates persistent vulnerabilities in online registration and election-management portals.

Implication:
India’s observed anomalies resonate with these international precedents. Centralised, software-enabled roll manipulations—whether through deletion or insertion—constitute a potent threat to electoral integrity, particularly in constituencies characterised by narrow victory margins and marginalised populations. The comparative evidence underscores the global urgency of instituting transparent, independently auditable voter-roll systems as a safeguard for democratic legitimacy.

4.1. Scale, Mechanisms, and Democratic Implications

Mechanisms and Scalability

The emerging evidence indicates a systematic modus operandi behind alleged voter-roll manipulations, most visibly in the Aland Assembly constituency of Karnataka. The pattern reveals the use of online deletion applications (Form 7) submitted via remote logins—often through VoIP networks, non-local mobile numbers, and external IP addresses—facilitated by call-centre or data-centre operations. Payments of approximately ₹80 per deletion suggest a monetised “service model,” where electoral disenfranchisement becomes a contracted activity.

The concentration of deletion requests in booths favouring the opposition—particularly those with Dalit, Adivasi, and minority voters—implies political selectivity in targeting. If corroborated, these tactics signify the exploitation of technical vulnerabilities within the ECI’s roll-management infrastructure, effectively transforming administrative systems into instruments of partisan control.

While the ECI maintains that its portal design precludes any external bulk deletion, the Karnataka SIT’s findings challenge this assertion. The data-centre hub in Kalaburagi and recovered communication trails underscore the feasibility of coordinated manipulation across constituencies. The absence of a national-level SIT and partial disclosure of access logs further obscure independent verification.

Scale and Potential Impact

Empirically, the Aland case alone involved 6,018 deletion requests, of which the ECI acknowledged only 24 as genuine—an anomaly ratio too large to dismiss as procedural noise. Investigations hint at similar operations across Kalaburagi district and potentially beyond, suggesting an industrialised model capable of altering outcomes in multiple marginal constituencies.

Given that many Indian seats are won or lost by margins below 10,000 votes, even a few thousand deletions or insertions could decisively flip electoral results. Thus, the risk transcends localised malpractice—it points toward a systemic vulnerability embedded in the digital infrastructure of roll revision.

Institutional Oversight and Democratic Trust

The electoral roll is the bedrock of democratic participation, functioning as a public asset that guarantees the equality of franchise. Manipulation of this foundation destabilises not only voter confidence but also the legitimacy of electoral outcomes. The ECI’s reluctance to release IP trails, OTP logs, and audit data, coupled with its categorical denial of wrongdoing, deepens the credibility deficit.

Moreover, the disproportionate impact on marginalised groups exposes the socio-political bias embedded within such manipulations, raising the spectre of digital disenfranchisement under the guise of modernisation. Digital roll management, absent robust public audit mechanisms, legal redressal frameworks, and transparent oversight, risks converting efficiency into opacity.

Comparative and Institutional Lessons

International precedents—voter purges in the U.S., identity-based roll fraud in Brazil, and multi-registration loopholes in Nigeria—demonstrate that software-enabled electoral tampering is not unique to India. These cases underline the need for traceable audit logs, biometric cross-verification, and open data policies to safeguard democratic legitimacy.

Caveats and Data Limitations

Despite detailed documentation in the Aland case, the full chain of digital evidence (backend logs, code access, and causal linkage to election results) remains unavailable in the public domain. The ECI’s insistence that no deletions occur automatically online introduces ambiguity about whether safeguards functioned as intended or were circumvented.

In other contexts, such as Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR), documentation remains partial, preventing a definitive nationwide generalisation. Accordingly, this article adopts a case-based, qualitative approach, treating these allegations as institutional risk indicators, not as conclusive proof of pan-Indian fraud.

Synthesis

Taken together, the evidence suggests that the Aland episode represents credible empirical proof of targeted voter-roll manipulation—implemented through a data-centre/VoIP infrastructure, monetised through per-deletion payments, and directed against opposition-leaning constituencies. The pattern of similar allegations elsewhere points to the possibility of a systemic architecture of “vote chori,” rather than isolated malfeasance.

The ECI’s defensive posture and fragmentary cooperation with investigative agencies amplify the crisis of transparency. Unless independent scrutiny of roll-management systems and their digital audit trails is permitted, India’s electoral democracy risks an invisible hollowing-out of its foundational mechanism: the list of who is allowed to vote.

While the data does not yet support a full quantitative estimate of the national scale, the qualitative implications for democratic legitimacy are already grave—signalling a slow, silent corrosion of electoral equality under the veneer of procedural normalcy.

5. “Vote Chori” (Vote Theft) in India — A Chronological Media Dossier (July–Oct 2025)

The trajectory of the “Vote Chori” revelations between July and October 2025 illustrates how a localized act of investigative journalism in Bihar evolved into a national political scandal and institutional reckoning. What began as Ajit Anjum’s field-level documentation of voter-roll forgeries during Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) rapidly acquired systemic dimensions once Rahul Gandhi’s press conferences reframed it as an “industrial-scale” assault on democratic equality. By September, The Wire’s forensic analyses and corroborating coverage from mainstream outlets such as NDTV and India Today had transformed the debate from rhetoric to digital evidence, compelling official responses from the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The following dossier reconstructs the unfolding of that media-political sequence through four interconnected phases—Revelation, Amplification, Verification, and Escalation—each corresponding to distinct epistemic functions: discovery, moral framing, technical validation, and civic mobilisation. Together, they demonstrate how information ecologies and media publics can reconstitute the meaning of electoral integrity in a digital democracy. Far from an episodic controversy, the “Vote Chori” discourse represents a genealogical shift in how India’s citizens, journalists, and institutions negotiate truth, evidence, and authority in the age of algorithmic governance.

Compiled from: Ajit Anjum, Indian National Congress (Rahul Gandhi), The Wire, NDTV, India Today, Bolta Hindustan
Scope: Traces the evolution of the “Vote Chori” exposé — from investigative journalism in Bihar to national political scandal and forensic inquiry.
Last Updated: October 31, 2025

I. Revelation — Bihar’s “SIR” Exposés (July–August 2025)

Key Source: Ajit Anjum | Bolta Hindustan | YouTube

Video / Report	Date	Source / Link	Focus	Significance
Ajit Anjum Shakes Election Commission, Rahul Gandhi Slams ‘Vote Theft Branch’	Jul 17	Bolta Hindustan	BLOs forging voter deletion forms; bulk removals under Bihar’s SIR process.	First empirical evidence of organised deletions.
Vote Chori पर माई लॉर्ड अब आपसे ही है उम्मीद!	Aug 11	Ajit Anjum Official	Appeals to SC; 6.5M deletions (2.2M “dead” voters).	Shifts debate from clerical lapses to constitutional ethics.
Tea with ‘Dead’ Voters (Punam Kumari case)	Aug 13	India Today	Exposes living voters listed as deceased.	Humanises disenfranchisement; viral proof of systemic manipulation.

Interpretation:
Ajit Anjum’s groundwork in Bihar revealed the modus operandi of digital disenfranchisement — where bureaucratic forms became instruments of exclusion. His reports became the empirical spine of the “Vote Chori” narrative later adopted nationally under the mass leadership of the Leader of the Opposition.

II. Amplification — Bengaluru & The “Vote Chori Factory” (Aug–Sep 2025)

Key Source: Rahul Gandhi | Indian National Congress | ANI | NDTV

Event / Video	Date	Source / Link	Highlights	Analytical Lens
Press Conference, Indira Bhawan (Delhi)	Aug 7	INC Official	1 lakh irregularities in Bengaluru; deletions flipped key seats.	Expands from Bihar to Karnataka; establishes “Vote Factory” metaphor.
‘मृत लोगों’ के साथ चाय feat. Punam Kumari	Aug 13	INC Official	Reiterates Anjum’s findings in emotional idiom.	Connects data theft to voter dignity.
LIVE: Rahul Gandhi Press Conference — “Vote Chori Factory”	Sep 18	ANI News	6,018 deletions in Aland via software; ₹80/deletion racket alleged.	Frames deletion as industrialised disenfranchisement.
Rahul Gandhi Special Press Conference	Sep 18	Congress Sandesh	Calls for SC-monitored SIT; shows “Deletion Files.”	Moves debate from rhetoric to evidence.
NDTV Coverage	Sep 18	NDTV	Broadcasts live rebuttals from ECI.	Inserts issue into national consciousness.

Interpretation:
Rahul Gandhi’s pressers translated civic outrage into political symbolism — “factory” as metaphor for mechanised vote theft. By naming specific districts, he elevated a bureaucratic irregularity into a moral-political crisis.

III. Verification — The Wire’s Forensic Deep-Dive (Aug–Sep 2025)

Key Source: The Wire Hindi / The Wire English

Investigation	Date	Link	Findings	Analytical Note
Five Shocking Points from Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Vote Chori’ Press Conference	Aug 9	The Wire	Breaks down Gandhi’s data; checks internal consistency.	Positions “Vote Chori” within digital accountability discourse.
Fact-Checking ECI’s Briefing on ‘Vote Chori’	Aug 17	The Wire Hindi	Cross-verifies ECI statements with public datasets.	Highlights algorithmic opacity in voter databases.
Technology of Vote Chori Explained	Sep 19	The Wire Hindi	“6K deletions in Aland — 14 in 13 mins; OTP bypass; non-Karnataka mobiles; CID’s 18 ignored letters.”	Supplies technical validation to political claims; urges SC cyber-forensics.

Interpretation:
The Wire supplied forensic depth, grounding moral rhetoric in digital evidence. Its analyses bridged activism and data science, demonstrating that “Vote Chori” was not only political malpractice but also a systemic failure of electoral cybersecurity.

IV. Escalation — SIT Probes, Rallies & Counter-Narratives (Oct 2025)

Key Source: India Today | INC | X Videos

Event / Context	Date	Source / Link	Highlights	Interpretive Insight
Ex-BJP MLA Named in Karnataka ‘Vote Chori’ Probe	Oct 23	India Today	SIT links ex-MLA to ₹80/deletion racket.	Partial substantiation of “Vote Chori Factory” claims.
BJP Counters: Congress Behind Fake Lists	Oct 24	India Today Debate	BJP blames Congress.	Illustrates post-truth politics around electoral legitimacy.
Rahul Gandhi Bihar Rallies (Muzaffarpur, Sheikhpura, Nalanda)	Oct 29–30	INC / X	“SIR = Chunav Chori!” / “Stand at booths, defend Constitution.”	Recasts vigilance as civic duty; popularises electoral resistance.

Interpretation:
By late October, “Vote Chori” had matured from investigation to mass idiom of democratic anxiety. It became a symbol of algorithmic disenfranchisement and citizen-led electoral vigilance.

V. Genealogical Flow — From Revelation to Resistance

Phase	Key Agent / Medium	Core Contribution	Epistemic Nature
I. Revelation	Ajit Anjum (YouTube Journalism)	Exposed SIR deletions, gave data ground.	Empirical groundwork.
II. Amplification	Rahul Gandhi / INC	Framed systemic deletion as “Vote Chori Factory.”	Political moralisation.
III. Verification	The Wire, NDTV, India Today	Verified digital and institutional claims.	Forensic accountability.
IV. Diffusion	Rallies, social media, civil society	Popularised issue as civic defence.	Collective mobilisation.

The Entire Narrative Arc

Bihar (Jul–Aug): Ajit Anjum’s exposés reveal deletion scams under SIR.
Delhi–Bengaluru (Aug–Sep): Rahul Gandhi legitimately politicises the findings; “Vote Chori Factory” goes national, creates mass upsurge.
The Wire (Sep): Technical audits confirm digital tampering evidence.
Nationwide (Oct): SIT probes, rallies, and counter-spin escalate crisis into democratic resistance.

The Paper, the Power, and the Proof: Why the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is Anti-Constitutional

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls—marketed as a routine democratic exercise—has instead exposed the bureaucratic anatomy of exclusion and the communal logic of control. What masquerades as administrative hygiene unfolds as a state-sponsored audit of belonging, where citizenship is not affirmed but perpetually questioned. In this machinery of surveillance, paper becomes the new border, transforming rights into proofs and proofs into punishments. Lakhs of names vanish silently—disproportionately those of religious minorities, migrants, the poor, and known opposition voters—while the Hindutva-driven BJP regime sanctifies this deletion drive as “electoral purification.” Each Form-6 or Form-7 thus operates like a bureaucratic weapon, converting democracy’s promise of equality into a spectacle of suspicion. The SIR, in essence, extends the logic of the communal NRC–CAA framework—turning voter verification into a stealth exercise in population vetting, where inclusion depends on documentary compliance rather than democratic right. Its moral pretext of “cleansing” corrodes the very foundations of trust and representation, replacing participation with paperwork, inclusion with erasure, and citizenship with conditional existence.

6. ECI Press Conference on “Vote Chori” and Critical Analyses by Non-Godi Media

(Updated: October 31, 2025)

Context:
On August 17, 2025, the Election Commission of India (ECI) held its first-ever press conference addressing Rahul Gandhi’s “Vote Chori” allegations, which had accused the ECI of enabling mass deletions via software manipulation in Karnataka and Bihar.
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar dismissed the claims as “baseless”, demanded oath-bound proof from Rahul Gandhi, and insisted that “no online deletions are possible”—asserting that Form-7 deletions occur manually through Booth Level Officers (BLOs) only. He defended the Bihar SIR exercise (6.5 million deletions, including 2.2 million “dead” or duplicate voters) as “routine electoral hygiene.” The CEC also stated that out of 83,000 verified claims, only 24 were fraudulent, adding:

“The ECI is independent. Voters trust us—please don’t politicize this institution.”

However, independent analysts and non-Godi media—The Wire, Dhruv Rathee, and Peek TV—countered that the press conference exemplified institutional gaslighting, noting 11 crucial questions the ECI evaded, including the ignored Karnataka SIT evidence, missing IP/OTP logs, and CCTV footage destruction under the pretext of “privacy.”

Official ECI Position (as per Press Conference)

Title	Channel	Key Points from ECI	Access
Full ECI Press Conference (1+ Hour)	ANI / NDTV	– “No bulk or online deletions.” – “Form-7 deletions only via BLO verification.” – Bihar SIR: 6.5M deletions (2.2M dead/duplicates). – 83K claims verified, 24 found fraudulent. – “Rahul’s 6K Aland deletions: local issue, no central fraud.” – “Provide proof under oath or stop misleading.”	Watch Full
Highlights (10 Min)	First India	Simplified explanation of SIR process; rebuts “dead voters” narrative.	Watch
Full Transcript	India Today (Live Blog)	Shows ECI dodged direct queries on IP logs, ignored Karnataka SIT’s 18 forensic letters, and offered no audit transparency.	Read Transcript

Non-Godi Counter-Analyses (Fact-Based)

Creator / Source	Animated	Core Critiques of ECI Presser	Notable Excerpts / Links
Dhruv Rathee – “Reality of Vote Chori” (27 min)	(Infographics, maps, timelines)	– Calls ECI briefing “a masterclass in gaslighting.”- Notes destruction of CCTV footage citing “privacy.”- Alleges 1 lakh+ deletions in Bengaluru; ₹80/deletion scam.- Demonstrates 5 modes of fraud (duplicates, fake IDs, OTP bypass).- Cites Maharashtra’s sudden 10 M voter surge as impossible.- Ends demanding CEC impeachment and SC-monitored cyber audit.	Watch on YouTube (youtube.com)
Peek TV – “ECI ‘Vote Chori’ Response Decoded” (1 min)	(Fully animated short)	– Frames ECI’s answers as evasive half-truths.- Highlights ignored Karnataka SIT letters and Form-7 loophole.- Argues ECI eroded public trust by selective transparency.	View on X (X (formerly Twitter))
The Wire Hindi – “Technology of Vote Chori” (w/ Praveen Chakravarty)	(Talk show)	– Dissects ECI’s “manual-only” claim as misleading.- Presents forensic proof: 14 deletions in 13 min; 122 fake mobile numbers; 18 ignored SIT letters.- Concludes: “ECI ignored its own officers for two years—credibility lost.”	Read the article (The Wire)
Shubhankar Mishra – “Rahul के Vote Chori आरोप”	(Partial animation)	– Directly questions ECI: “Where’s your proof of no bulk fraud?”- Re-examines Bihar’s “dead voters” data inconsistencies.	Watch on YouTube (youtube.com)
The News Minute – “Inside Voter List Scandals”	(English visuals)	– Explains institutional failure across states; contrasts ECI claims with ground data.	Watch video (youtube.com)
Financial Express – “11 Questions the ECI Dodged”	—	– Lists omitted issues: IP logs, Aland CID requests, CCTV data retention.	Read article (The Economic Times)

Bihar Update

As of October 31, 2025, Phase 1 of the Bihar electoral revision begins November 5, with #VoteChori trending at over 2 million posts nationwide. Civil society groups urge citizens to verify their entries via the 1950 helpline—a gesture that has itself become symbolic of electoral vigilance under suspicion.

Interpretation:
The August 17 ECI presser, intended to restore confidence, instead amplified distrust by substituting transparency with rhetorical authority. Non-Godi media’s collective response reframed it as a case study in bureaucratic denialism—where form replaces truth, and rebuttal replaces accountability. What was meant as reassurance thus became yet another data point in the growing archive of democratic anxiety and institutional opacity.

7. Indian Democracy at Stake: A Deeper Diagnosis of Systemic Collapse

India’s democratic edifice, heralded as a beacon of pluralism and scale, now confronts an existential legitimation crisis—a profound rupture where electoral outcomes fail to command authentic consent, institutions morph into partisan appendages, and governance prioritizes spectacle over substance. This peril manifests not as isolated scandals but as interlocking failures: electoral manipulations that defy arithmetic logic, institutional capture enabling hybrid authoritarianism, ecological-economic implosion ignored amid depopulation gambits, and a civilizational wound festering under majoritarian veneer. The stakes are civilizational: without urgent, radical reconfiguration, the republic risks entrenching an electoral autocracy—formal polls masking perpetual elite dominion.

The Electoral Fraudulence: Arithmetic Defies Geometry

In 1756, when Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah’s forces captured Fort William, a grim episode entered colonial memory as the “Black Hole of Calcutta.” According to survivor J. Z. Holwell’s contested account, 123 of the 146 prisoners perished overnight within a 324-square-foot dungeon—a space too small, by any geometric reasoning, to contain so many living bodies. Whether the tale was imperial exaggeration or not, its enduring provocation lies in the contradiction it dramatizes: how can arithmetic falsify geometry? How can numbers assert what space denies?

That paradox resurfaces, eerily, in India’s contemporary democracy. Today, votes rather than bodies are being compressed into statistical black holes—vanishing, multiplying, or reappearing in ways that defy the arithmetic of representation and the geometry of constituencies. In recent electoral cycles, official tallies revealed nearly six lakh votes missing across 538 constituencies—with 5.54 lakh undercounted in 362 seats and 35,000 overcounted elsewhere, the gaps often exceeding margins of victory. Earlier exercises had shown 7.39 lakh mismatches across 347 seats, suggesting a recurring, systemic distortion rather than isolated clerical error.

Even more unsettling are the post-poll surges: five crore votes appearing between successive reporting phases, disproportionately benefiting incumbents by as many as seventy-six seats in strategically vital states. Yet, the Election Commission of India delayed releasing even percentage figures for eleven days, and when confronted with discrepancies, dismissed them as “false campaigns,” offering no audit trail or reconciliation data.

Thus, the geometry of democracy—its spatial integrity across booths, districts, and constituencies—buckles under the pressure of fabricated arithmetic. Just as Holwell’s dungeon tested the limits of human endurance within impossible dimensions, India’s electoral process now tests the limits of public faith within the shrinking chamber of statistical credibility. In both cases, the impossibility itself becomes the mechanism of control—a confinement of truth through numbers that refuse to fit the space they claim to measure.

Mechanisms of Theft (Binary Dead-Ends Exposed):

Flaw	EVM Vulnerabilities	Ballot Vulnerabilities	Shared Enablers
Manipulation Scale	Mismatches in 370+ seats; mock data undeleted	Booth captures, ballot snatching (e.g., pond recoveries)	Muscle-money nexus; 16 deaths in violence
Institutional Blindness	Refusal to explain 140+ overcounts	“Scientific rigging” normalized	Partisan oversight; Form 17C withheld
Global Rejection	No advanced democracy uses (hack-prone)	Prone to “relay races,” eating papers	Opaque funding (₹6,000+ crore to rulers)

This inductive refutation—one fraud nullifies “free and fair” universality—renders regimes illegal, demanding resign-recontest under recall rights (52nd Amendment echoes).

Institutional Capture: From Omission to “Super Emergency”

Electoral bodies, once neutral, now embody partisanship:

Appointment Rigging: Excluding judicial oversight, installing “favored” commissioners amid resignations.
Soft on Incumbents: Zero action on hate speeches, MCC breaches; eye-wash letters to parties.
Data Denialism: Voter turnout blackouts, mirroring bond scams—SBI limps, then bolts.

This births an undeclared emergency—hybrid tyranny outstripping 1975’s overt clampdown:

Dimension	Declared (1975-77)	Undeclared (2014-)
Repression	Jails, censorship (MISA)	UAPA dragnets (2% conviction; 63% pending 3-5 yrs); ED/CBI raids
Opposition	Mass arrests	Kejriwal/Soren jailed pre-polls; Moitra expelled
Media	Pre-censorship	Godi takeovers; 300+ RTI activists killed
Economy	Nationalization (banks)	Crony bankruptcies (DHFL opacity; Adani bribery)
Communal Edge	None	Lynchings, bulldozers; minorities as “terrorists”
Judiciary	ADM Jabalpur surrender	Saffron pujas; collegium dilution
Citizen Fear	Clear “Dos/Don’ts”	Undefined rules—urban Naxal overnight

UAPA exemplars: Bhima Koregaon 16 (Swamy starved to death); Saibaba (90% disabled, life sentence); Khalid/Imam (5+ yrs untried). NHRC/RTI collapse: 7 defunct commissions; GANHRI downgrade.

Ecological-Economic Doomsday: Boiling Frog to Desertification

Polls amid heat apocalypses (40+ poll deaths) expose climate denialism:

Missile “tests” trigger cyclones (e.g., Remal post-RudraM-II).
33k trees felled for pilgrim roads; mangroves razed for bullets.
Ghats flooded, heritage commodified—Kashi as vandalism site.

Economics of Ruin:

Debt >100% GDP (IMF warning); hyper-inflation, unemployment.
Electoral Bonds: 57% to rulers—quid-pro-quo for Piramal/Adani bailouts.
PM CARES: Opaque philanthropy, evading audits.

Convergence: Desertification, refugees by 2035; external debt traps (WB-IMF-WTO) ensure puppetry.

Civilizational Malaise: Wounded Pluralism

Naipaul’s wound deepens: Modi=India=B JP cult erases minorities, history. Judiciary saffronized (Ram Mandir optics); press ranked abysmal. Chandigarh “murder of democracy”—ballots marked live.

Path Forward: Partyless Rebirth

Binary traps (EVM/ballot) yield to decentralized directocracy:

Referendums, recall via local republics (Gandhi/Owen/Chomsky).
NOTA as no-confidence (2/3 triggers re-polls).
Blockchain audits, eco-ESG mandates.
Fifth Pillar: Non-Godi voices (Ravish, Dhruv, Wire).

Imperative: Article 142 for complete justice—SC-mandated re-elections, neutral ECI. Taxpayer heist (₹1.35 lakh crore polls) demands eco-swaraj.

Verdict: Democracy isn’t dying—it’s murdered daily. Reclaim via grassroots federations, or perish in majoritarian mahapralaya. The people’s republic awaits awakening.

7.1. Beyond Fraud: Structural Disenfranchisement and Institutional Drift

The persistence of electoral irregularities in India—whether through voter-roll purges, data opacity, or selective enforcement—cannot be understood merely as administrative lapses. They reflect a deeper institutional drift within the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the architecture of electoral governance itself. Over the last decade, centralised control and executive influence have eroded the Commission’s autonomy, transforming it from an independent constitutional body into a managerial arm of the ruling dispensation. The 2023 amendment to the appointment process of Election Commissioners, which replaced the judicial member of the selection committee with a Cabinet-rank minister, further entrenched this imbalance. Such design shifts dilute the checks that once insulated electoral oversight from political pressure.

Comparatively, democracies with electronic or digital voting frameworks—such as Brazil and the Philippines—employ real-time publication of precinct-level results and mandatory third-party audits to maintain public trust. In India, by contrast, election data remain locked within bureaucratic silos, accessible neither to independent auditors nor to the general public. This secrecy transforms procedural legitimacy into an act of faith rather than verification.

At a sociological level, these structural distortions breed democratic alienation. When citizens repeatedly encounter missing names, delayed disclosures, and unaccountable officials, they begin to view participation as futile. As Ambedkar warned, the “top-dressing of democracy on the soil of inequality” cannot last; disenfranchisement, even when procedural, corrodes the moral contract between state and citizen. Echoing P. Sainath, one might say that India’s electoral system has preserved the ritual of voting but hollowed out its representative meaning.

What India faces today is not only a crisis of vote-counting, but a crisis of credibility—where democratic institutions, by failing to make themselves transparent, have become the architects of their own disbelief.

8. Conclusion: Democracy’s Audit Trail

India’s debate on “vote theft” under the fascist BJP regime ultimately transcends machines, turnout percentages, or even deleted names. It confronts a far more fundamental question—whether citizens can still verify the legitimacy of their own democracy. The recurring gaps in transparency, the bureaucratic opacity of Form 17C, the unresolved voter-roll purges, and the centralisation of electoral authority together point to a deeper malaise: a democracy increasingly dependent on institutional faith rather than institutional evidence.

This faith, however, is no longer sustainable. A system that asks its citizens to trust without verifying betrays the very principle of republican accountability. India’s electoral machinery—once a global benchmark for procedural integrity—now risks becoming an instrument of procedural illusion. Unless mechanisms for public verification, independent audit, and data transparency are institutionalised, democratic participation will continue to decay into ritual without representation.

The language of “vote theft” is, at its core, the language of betrayed trust. It signals that the distance between the voter and the vote counter has widened beyond comprehension. The task ahead is not to romanticise distrust but to transform it into demand—for radical transparency, open data, and a new social contract of verification. Only when citizens can audit power as freely as they exercise it can the ballot regain its sanctity.

Democracy does not collapse in one grand moment of coup or fraud. It erodes in quiet increments—in missing names, withheld data, and unanswerable commissions. To defend it is to insist that every vote, like every right, must leave an audit trail.

The following affidavit arises from a collective civic anguish at the systematic hollowing of India’s democratic foundations through bureaucratic manipulation and data opacity. It is written not merely as a legal rejoinder but as a moral testimony against the weaponization of procedure—most visibly through the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the broader ecosystem of vote theft, digital disenfranchisement, and paper-based exclusion. In a democracy, the ballot is sacred; yet, when rolls are “revised” to erase the marginalized and data is withheld to obscure discrepancies, the act of voting itself becomes hostage to verification, not choice. This affidavit therefore stands as both evidence and protest—an appeal to the conscience of the judiciary, the Election Commission, and the global democratic community—to recognize that India’s crisis is not one of election management but of democratic betrayal, where the paper, the power, and the proof have conspired to silence the people.

References

Agarwal, P. (2024, June 10). “In 140+ LS seats, more EVM votes were counted than EVM votes polled. What’s going on?” The Wire. https://thewire.in/politics/in-140-ls-seats-more-evm-votes-were-counted-than-evm-votes-polled-whats-going-on

Ajit Anjum. (2025, July 12). SIR fraud: BLO forgery in Begusarai [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ejvSe146Ug

Ajit Anjum. (2025, August 11). Vote Chori पर माई लॉर्ड अब आपसे ही है उम्मीद! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ejvSe146Ug

Association for Democratic Reforms. (2024, July 29). Discrepancies between the votes cast and the votes counted in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. ADR India. https://adrindia.org/report/discrepancies-between-votes-cast-and-counted-2024

Election Commission of India. (2025, August 17). Press briefing on voter turnout and allegations of vote chori [Press conference]. ECI. https://eci.gov.in/press-briefing-17-august-2025

Gandhi, R. [@RahulGandhi]. (2025, August 7). Press conference: Indira Bhawan, New Delhi [Video]. Indian National Congress. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPVF6ihjaz4

Gandhi, R. [@RahulGandhi]. (2025, August 13). मृत लोगों के साथ चाय, धन्यवाद ECI [Video]. Indian National Congress. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIgEPI-lIqo

Gandhi, R. [@RahulGandhi]. (2025, September 18). Vote Chori Factory: The deletion files [Press conference]. ANI News. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baPS-yoP3S8

Indian National Congress. (2025, October 30). Rahul Gandhi addresses rally in Sheikhpura, Bihar [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmRzlpV6-Ng

Karnataka State Police. (2025). Special Investigation Team report on Aland voter deletion racket. Karnataka CID. (Unpublished internal document; cited in The Wire, 2025)

Peek TV [@PeekTV_in]. (2025, August 17). ECI “Vote Chori” response decoded [Video]. X (formerly Twitter). https://x.com/PeekTV_in/status/1957436891147665902

Rathee, D. [@dhruv_rathee]. (2025). Reality of Vote Chori [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW1e_2F0yn0

The Wire. (2025, August 9). Five shocking points from Rahul Gandhi’s “Vote Chori” press conference [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydBnFKQhlMU

The Wire Hindi. (2025, September 19). Technology of Vote Chori explained [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfkjn_EFJrc

“‘Online voter deletion not possible’: EC refutes Rahul Gandhi’s claim; cites law and due process.” Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/online-voter-deletion-not-possible-ec-refutes-rahul-gandhis-claim-cites-law-and-due-process/articleshow/124001888.cms

“Karnataka vote-chori: Ex-BJP MLA burnt proof of deleting 6,000 voters, say sources.” India Today (Deepthi Rao, October 23 2025).

“Probe into forged voter-deletion applications in K’taka stalls as EC does not share data.” The Wire / NewsClick.

“Karnataka mulls forming SIT after Rahul Gandhi’s ‘vote chori’ allegations in Aland.” India Today, September 18 2025 / Hindutva Watch.

“Over 6,000 voters deleted for Rs 80 each in Aland: Karnataka SIT.” Times of India, October 23 2025.

Pooja Prasanna. (2025, August 15). “‘Vote Chori’: Inside India’s voter list scandals | LME 87”. The News Minute. https://www.thenewsminute.com/videos/vote-chori-inside-indias-voter-list-scandals-lme-87-pooja-prasanna

Jahnavi & Dhanya Rajendran. (2025, October 14). “KTR alleges ‘vote chori’ by Congress in Jubilee Hills, says no faith in ECI.” The News Minute. https://www.thenewsminute.com/telangana/ktr-alleges-vote-chori-by-congress-in-jubilee-hills-says-no-faith-in-eci

Ayushi Kar, Vishnu Narayan, Gayatri Sapru & Harshitha Manwani. (2025, September 1). “1.88 lakh cases of ‘dubious double voters’ in 39 assembly constituencies of Bihar.” Reporters’ Collective. https://www.reporters-collective.in/trc/1-88-lakh-cases-of-double-voters-in-39-constituencies