ECI silent on five ‘misleading’ claims on voter-list fraud

Following the disclosure of a massive ‘voter list fraud’ or 'vote chori (theft) on 7 August by Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, the BJP and the Election Commission of India (ECI) described the revelations as ‘misleading’ and ‘false’.

The LoP had claimed that after scanning and sifting through physical voters’ lists (provided by the ECI itself ) of Mahadevpura — a single assembly segment of Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency — for over six months, a team of 30-40 Congress volunteers reported the following findings:

• 11,965 duplicate voters had voted in multiple booths (in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections)

• 40,009 fake or invalid addresses, including addresses where the house number was shown as 0

• 10,452 bulk voters at single addresses; for example, at one single-bedroom address, 80 voters were listed, who on investigation could not be traced

• 4,132 names with invalid photographs

• 33,692 voters enrolled through a misuse of Form 6, the form meant to enlist new voters but actually used to enlist ‘first time voters’ aged between 70 and 95

1. The Election Commission’s response, as reported in the media quoting 'sources', was to demand that if the LoP believed in the findings, he must file a complaint on oath, through an affidavit under ECI rules. “Either sign the declaration on issues you have raised in the press conference which you believe is true or else apologise to the nation,” the ECI stated.

Since then, several constitutional experts, including former Lok Sabha secretary-general P.D.T. Achary, former election commissioner O.P. Rawat and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, have pointed out that the rule is not applicable in this case. According to Achary, “These rules apply till 30 days after the draft rolls are published…in this case elections were held 15 months back (Lok Sabha polls 2024)…they (ECI) are wrong to invoke this rule.”

The rule quoted by the Karnataka chief electoral officer and subsequently the CEOs of Maharashtra and Haryana asking the LoP to submit his complaint and evidence regarding it under an oath or declaration was applicable to complaints filed within 30 days of the publication of draft electoral rolls before the election, not after, they explained.

Asking Gandhi to file an affidavit was “a joke”, said Sibal. “They are asking for an affidavit to be filed under a rule in which no inquiry can now take place…,” he added. While the election commission has gone to town stating that Gandhi was asked to file an affidavit or apologise, they are cleverly not adding that no action can be taken and no inquiry held under the rule — even if the affidavit is filed, Sibal explained.

2. The LoP in his press conference named two voters in Mahadevapura segment — Gurkirat Singh Dang, a 27-year-old man, and Shakun Rani, a 71-year-old woman. Even 24 hours after the press conference, the election commission has maintained a studied silence on these two names. The four EPIC numbers of Gurkirat — SVF1125525, SVF1124312, SVF1124627, and SVF1123017 — and two of Shakun — SVF 9891102 and SVF9928896 — can still be seen on the ECI website, as reported by multiple media outlets and fact-checkers.

3. The CEO of Uttar Pradesh, however, latched on to two other voters who, the LoP had said, seemed to have cast their votes in multiple states. While Vishal Singh was enrolled in Varanasi Cantonment and also in Mahadevpura, Aditya Srivastava, he had said, was enrolled in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The UP CEO claimed that names of neither were found in the electoral rolls of UP.

Alt News and fact checker Mohammad Zubair pointed out that Gandhi had shown the screenshots of the rolls as on 16 March 2025 (after the revised list was published in January 2025), while the CEO had used screenshots from 7 August, the day the LoP addressed the press conference. How did the names, which were there in March, disappear in August?

The election commission has also not denied that Aditya Srivastava cast his vote in the Maharashtra assembly election and earlier in the Karnataka general election in 2024. While the gentleman with the same EPIC number was on the rolls of three different states in March 2025, this fact has not been denied by the ECI yet.

4. An investigation by India Today focused on booth no. 470 in Mahadevapura, specifically house no. 35 in Muni Reddy Garden. Gandhi had shown voters’ lists to point out that 80 voters were fraudulently registered at this address, which is a room barely 10-15 sq. feet in size. The owner of the property told India Today that he did not know anyone in the voters’ list registered at the address. He did rent out the rooms to migrant workers, and the current tenant is Dipankar from West Bengal, who took the room on rent barely a month ago.

However, an investigation by The News Minute revealed someone by the name of Nishith Mandal, who has been living in room no. 34 for the past 36 years. Most of the occupants in the row of rooms were from West Bengal, Assam and other eastern states, he confided, and said none of them were voters in Karnataka to the best of his knowledge. He, too, failed to recognise any of the 80 voters registered at the address.

Once again, the ECI has been conspicuously silent. Who are these 80 voters and how were they enrolled? Will the ECI take action against the booth-level officer (BLO) and his supervisor? Or will it wait for the LoP to file a complaint on oath first?

5. BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya shared a photograph of a family and posted on X: “In his press conference, Rahul Gandhi declared this family to be “fake voters” — all because of an illegible photo. Perhaps the problem is that Rahul simply couldn’t see. The family is holding up their EPIC cards…,” he asserted.

Once again, Zubair pointed out that each of the three-member family in the photograph shared by Malviya (Om Prakash Bagri, Saraswati Bagri and Mala Bagri) have two different EPIC IDs, registered in Mahadevpura in Bengaluru Central, and another in Bengaluru South constituency, with Mala Bagri’s second EPIC card registered in Cuttack. “How can someone have two EPIC numbers with different house locations @ECISVEEP, @ceokarnataka, please explain,” Zubair posted on X.

6. 153, Biere Street, Whitefield in Bengaluru is apparently a café and brewery. How did the ECI allow 68 voters to use this address to register? No word from the ECI yet.

After West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee raised allegations of multiple voters with the same EPIC numbers, the ECI had announced a major drive, promising to resolve duplication with its unique EPIC numbers. In May 2025, the ECI claimed it had resolved the issue after checking its entire database of 99 crore electors across the country. 

The ECI’s claim was clearly false because even Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav, if the ECI is to be believed, is listed under two EPIC numbers. It is time for the ECI to admit that the system is broken and allow an independent investigation.