Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi has alleged large-scale voter fraud during last year’s Haryana Assembly elections, claiming that as many as 25 lakh votes were stolen. He said the number represents about 12.5% of the total 2 crore voters in the state, calling it “one in every eight voters” being fake.
Gandhi stated that several Congress candidates raised concerns after the election results, saying something appeared “off”. Despite all exit polls predicting a Congress win, the final results gave victory to the BJP.
He also showed a video of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini allegedly saying before the results that “arrangements” had been made for the BJP to win. “What were these arrangements?” Gandhi asked, questioning how the leader could be certain of victory even before counting began.
“Brazilian model voted as Seema and Sweety,” alleges Gandhi
Citing alleged irregularities in the voter list, Gandhi displayed 22 entries featuring the same stock photograph of a Brazilian model, Matheus Ferrero, who appeared multiple times under different names such as Seema, Sweety, and Saraswati. “She votes in 10 different booths in Haryana and has multiple names. This means this is a centralised operation,” he said.
He further claimed there were 100 voter IDs with the same woman’s photo in a single constituency and another image that appeared 223 times across two polling booths. Gandhi alleged that such duplication enabled outsiders to vote multiple times.
“This is the reason the Election Commission destroys CCTV footage of booths,” he said, accusing the poll body of failing to prevent electoral fraud.
Congress lost by narrow margins, says Gandhi
Rahul Gandhi said the Congress lost eight constituencies by extremely slim margins, including one by just 32 votes, with the total margin across these seats amounting to 22,779 votes. “This shows how close the election was and how manipulation changed the result,” he said.
The Congress leader alleged that 3.5 lakh names were deleted from Haryana’s voter list before the election. He demanded accountability from the Election Commission, saying it had the capability to remove duplicate entries instantly but chose not to.
Election Commission sources respond
Sources in the Election Commission refuted the claims and questioned why Congress polling agents did not raise objections on voting day. They added that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise was meant to identify duplicate or invalid entries.
“Polling agents are supposed to object if a voter’s identity is doubtful. If Pawan Khera’s name appears in two states’ voter lists, does that mean he votes twice?” an official source asked.