Campaign against 'vote chori' now massive mass movement: Rahul Gandhi

Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the campaign against "vote chori (theft)" has turned into a "massive mass movement" with more than 15 lakh support certificates downloaded and over 10 lakh missed calls received since the launch of a dedicated portal for it.

Upping the ante over Rahul Gandhi's poll rigging claims which he made at a press conference on 7 August, the Congress had launched a web portal for people to register and demand accountability from the Election Commission of India (ECI) over what Gandhi called "vote chori" or election fraud, and express support for the demand for digital voter rolls, which the ECI has so far refused to provide.

Earlier on Monday, Gandhi and other Opposition leaders, including Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and party president Mallikarjun Kharge were briefly detained by Delhi Police as they and several others attempted to march to the ECI head office.

During his press conference, Gandhi had described how his team was compelled to trawl through stacks of paper as tall as seven feet in an effort to pinpoint discrepancies in the voter rolls, a process which took them six months simply because they had no access to digital data.

In addition, he had challenged the ECI that he would prove that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had "won by theft" if the ECI released the digital data.

In a post in Hindi on X, Gandhi said the campaign against "vote chori" has now become a massive mass movement. "In the last 24 hours: 15 lakh+ support certificates downloaded, 10 lakh+ missed calls received," the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha said.

"This is the true picture of India's democracy today — the suppressed voices of truth, which are being raised through our campaign. Go to votechori.in/ecdemand or give a missed call to 96500 03420; not a single case of vote theft should be missed," Gandhi said.

Anyone can click on the portal link and download "vote chori proof, demand EC accountability and report vote chori". It also carries Gandhi's video in which he reiterated his explosive claims of a "huge criminal fraud" in the polls through "collusion" between the ruling BJP at the Centre and the ECI.

During his press conference, Gandhi had cited an analysis of a single Assembly segment — Mahadevapura — in the Lok Sabha constituency of Bengaluru Central in Karnataka to support his claim of election fraud perpetrated by the ECI, and said it was "a crime against the Constitution".

The portal also carries a message which states that voting is the foundation of our democracy, but it's under "systematic attack by the BJP, with the Election Commission complicit".

"In just one assembly segment of Bangalore Central, we found over 1 lakh fake voters that helped the BJP win this Lok Sabha seat. Imagine this happening in 70-100 seats — it would destroy free elections," it claimed.

"The Congress and INDIA (bloc) had raised alarms before, including in Maharashtra. Now we have proof. We will fight this vote chori with all our strength. Join us to defend our democracy," the message on the portal reads.

Once a person registers on the portal, a certificate is issued in his or her name, which states that they stand against "vote chori". 'I support Rahul Gandhi's demand for digital voter rolls from the EC,' the certificate reads.

The portal also gives people the option to call a phone number and fill in the link in the SMS to register. The certificate bears the signatures of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress MP and general-secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal and treasurer Ajay Maken.

Several Congress leaders and supporters had registered on the portal and shared the certificates on social media.

Gandhi cited data from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to claim over 1 lakh votes were "stolen" through five types of manipulation in Mahadevapura Assembly segment.

Addressing reporters while taking them through an online presentation, Gandhi had said his party analysed voter data from Mahadevapura Assembly segment because it had struck the party as suspicious that while it won the five other Assembly segments within Bengaluru Central, its margin of defeat in Mahadevapura was so large that it offset the wins in all the other segments.

"We started examining the details and discovered that approximately 1,00,250 votes were stolen in the Mahadevapura segment," he had claimed.

Gandhi had also alleged that an analysis of Mahadevapura segment threw up 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 with fake and invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters or single-address voters, 4,132 voters with invalid photos and 33,692 voters misusing Form 6 meant to enlist new voters.

With PTI inputs