Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, along with INDIA bloc MPs in New Delhi. File
| Photo Credit: ANI
A day before Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi is to lead a protest march of INDIA bloc MPs to the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters against the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar and alleged electoral malpractices, the Congress on Sunday (August 10, 2025) launched an online campaign on alleged vote chori [theft].
On Monday (August 11, 2025), Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will host the MPs for a dinner meeting to formulate a common strategy on the issue of the alleged poll fraud.
Mr. Gandhi, on his X handle, gave the link to a web portal and a phone number and urged people to register themselves either on the portal or by giving a missed call to the number.
“Vote Chori is an attack on the foundational idea of ‘one man, one vote’. A clean voter roll is imperative for free and fair elections. Our demand from the EC is clear – be transparent and release digital voter rolls so that people and parties can audit them,” he said. “This fight is to protect our democracy”.
Mr. Gandhi’s post on X in Hindi carries a video in which he reiterates his explosive claims of a “huge criminal fraud” in the polls through collusion between the BJP and the EC.
‘Systematic attack’
The web portal given in Mr. Gandhi’s post leads to a link that will download a page reading, “vote chori proof, demand EC accountability and report vote chori” and a certificate. The portal also carries a message which states that the vote 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,” the page claims.
“The Congress and INDIA have 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 further.
Once a person registers on the portal, a certificate is issued in his name, which states that he stands against “vote chori”. “I support Rahul Gandhi’s demand of digital voter rolls from the EC,” the certificate says.
Dinner meeting
On Monday (August 11, 2025), Opposition leaders and MPs will take out a protest march from Parliament to the Election Commission office over the “poll fraud” issue. And in the evening, Mr. Kharge will host INDIA bloc MPs for dinner at Hotel Taj Palace, Chanakyapuri.
This comes just days after top INDIA bloc leaders, in a show of unity, held a dinner meeting at the residence of Mr. Gandhi, which was the first physical meeting of top leaders of the Opposition bloc since they last met in June 2024.
Several leaders from 25 parties were present at the meeting, which included Mr. Kharge, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, NCP-SP chief Sharad Pawar, National Conference supremo Farooq Abdullah, PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti, SP’s Akhilesh Yadav, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee, Shiv Sena(UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, DMK’s Tiruchi Siva and T.R. Baalu, CPI(M)‘s M.A. Baby, CPI’s D. Raja, CPI(ML)‘s Dipankar Bhattacharya and MNM chief Kamal Haasan.
Published – August 10, 2025 10:15 pm IST
