New Delhi, Sept 18 — Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of protecting what he called a “centralised criminal operation” that, he said, is erasing voters’ names en masse to steal elections. Gandhi told reporters that a Karnataka CID probe into the matter has already produced a first information report.
Gandhi said the CID had repeatedly sought crucial technical data from the Election Commission — “18 times over 18 months” — including destination IP addresses, device ports and OTP trails, but the poll body had not complied. “Why are they not giving this? Because this will lead directly to the spot from where the operation is being run,” he said.
He characterised the alleged deletions as a targeted effort to suppress votes among Dalits, adivasis, minorities and OBCs, asserting that the scheme was being used state after state to chip away at opposition support. “This is not about the H-bomb, this is another milestone in showing how elections are being rigged,” Gandhi said.
Gandhi cited the 2023 assembly election in Aland, Karnataka, where he said 6,018 deletion applications were lodged through impersonation and automated means. The case, he said, surfaced only after a booth-level officer noticed her uncle’s name missing from the rolls; she confronted a neighbour who appeared as the applicant and discovered he had no knowledge of the deletion. “Neither the person alleged to have deleted the vote knew, nor the voter whose name was removed. Some other force hijacked the process,” Gandhi noted.
He outlined what he described as a pattern. In one instance, Gandhi said, a fraudulent login was created in the name of a 63-year-old woman, Godabai, to remove 12 voters; the attempt was stopped in time. “She had no idea this was happening. Mobile numbers from outside Karnataka were used. Whose numbers were these, and who was generating the OTPs?” he asked.
Another example featured a man named Suryakaant, who, Gandhi said, discovered that 12 deletions had been filed in his name within 14 minutes. Gandhi brought Suryakaant on stage with Babita, whose name, he said, was removed using Suryakaant’s stolen identity. “I never received a message, I never filed any deletion. Babita only told me later,” Suryakaant said.
A third case involved a voter named Naagraj, in whose name two deletion applications were filed within 36 seconds at 4 a.m. “It is humanly impossible,” Gandhi remarked, arguing that the speed of the filings pointed to automation.
Gandhi alleged the activity was concentrated in Congress strongholds, saying the top 10 booths with the most deletions were areas where his party had performed well. “The top 10 booths with maximum deletions were Congress strongholds, and we had won eight of them in 2018. This was not a coincidence, it was a planned operation,” he said.
He accused those behind the scheme of using specialised software that scanned voter rolls sequentially and executed mass impersonation to submit deletion requests. “This is black and white, undeniable proof. The Chief Election Commissioner is shielding vote chors,” Gandhi said.
At the press conference, Gandhi urged the Election Commission to produce the technical logs sought by investigators so the trail could be followed to its origin. He said the CID’s FIR and repeated requests for data demonstrated the seriousness of the probe and called for accountability and immediate cooperation from the poll body.
The allegation raises questions about electoral integrity and the mechanisms in place to protect voter rolls, and it sets up a potential conflict between the Congress-led charges and election officials who have — to date — not publicly disclosed the technical information Gandhi cited.
