BJP leader and former Union Minister Anurag Thakur has accused the Congress party and its I.N.D.I. alliance of running a “nationwide vote theft industry,” fuelled by illegal immigrants, forged documents, and systemic manipulation of electoral rolls.
The allegations, backed by constituency-wise data compiled by the BJP, place Rahul Gandhi’s Raebareli seat at the epicentre of this purported fraud, with more than 2 lakh suspicious voters and over 52,000 fake birth certificates allegedly linked to creating a “loyal voter base” for the Congress.
Raebareli – The heart of the alleged scam
Thakur detailed the findings from Raebareli, one of the Congress party’s most prized strongholds:
- 92,747 voters added through “mass addition” processes, often conducted without adequate verification.
- 15,853 entries classified under “mixed households,” raising red flags over fabricated family connections.
- 71,977 voter IDs tied to fake addresses.
- 19,512 duplicates the same individual allegedly appearing in multiple polling booths.
Perhaps most alarming, BJP investigators claim to have traced 52,000+ fake birth certificates tied to bogus addresses in the constituency, pointing to a systematic attempt to generate new voter IDs for individuals who may not legally qualify. “This is not a clerical error. This is engineering of the voter list for political gain. This is industrial-scale voter fraud,” Thakur declared.
Pattern Beyond Raebareli: I.N.D.I alliance under the scanner
The BJP claims that the pattern of irregularities is not limited to one constituency or party but is spread across seats held by senior I.N.D.I alliance leaders:
- Wayanad (Rahul Gandhi, previously Priyanka Gandhi Vadra): 93,499 doubtful voters, 20,438 duplicates, 17,450 fake addresses.
- Diamond Harbour (Abhishek Banerjee, TMC): Nearly 2.6 lakh doubtful voters, 1.55 lakh with fake addresses.
- Kannauj (Akhilesh Yadav, SP): 2,91,798 doubtful voters.
- Mainpuri (Dimple Yadav, SP): 2,55,914 doubtful voters.
- Kolathur (M.K. Stalin, DMK): Nearly 20,000 doubtful voters.
BJP workers, according to Thakur, found multiple entries for the same individual with variations in the father’s name, as well as addresses where dozens of voters were registered in a single house including one Raebareli address with 47 voter IDs.
In a move that reframed the accusations as part of a long-running political culture, Thakur invoked the 1952 general election as the genesis of Congress’s alleged electoral manipulation.
“Congress and CPI joined hands to defeat Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar. 74,333 votes were rejected, and Ambedkar ji lost by just 14,561 votes. They robbed a Dalit leader, the very architect of our Constitution, of a rightful victory. This was the foundation of electoral corruption in independent India,” Thakur alleged.
The BJP turned Rahul Gandhi’s own rhetoric back on him, directly questioning his credibility, “If Rahul Gandhi demands resignations over alleged voter fraud, will he resign from Raebareli and Wayanad? Or is morality only for others?” Thakur asked.
He labelled Gandhi a “propaganda king” who, according to him, survives politically by shielding illegal immigrants and protecting manipulated electoral lists.
Anurag Thakur also targeted West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, reminding her of her 2005 Lok Sabha protest in which she accused the voter rolls of containing illegal Bangladeshi migrants. “Now, when we’re cleaning the mess she herself exposed, she blocks the process. Was she lying then, or is she lying now?”
The BJP slammed the Congress of maintaining a defeat narrative for decades from claiming Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are hacked, to questioning the Election Commission and constitutional institutions after every loss. Thakur cited Rahul Gandhi’s leadership record of losing 90 elections as evidence that “blame-shifting” had become the Congress’s default political strategy.
