In one of the most incendiary moments of India’s post-election discourse, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi dropped what he called a “hydrogen bomb” on the country’s democratic credibility. At a packed press conference in New Delhi, Gandhi unveiled what he termed “H-Files” – a dossier of alleged digital evidence that, according to him, proves the BJP “stole” the Haryana Assembly election through a centralised “vote theft operation.”
“This isn’t just about one state being stolen,” Gandhi declared. “This is democracy itself being heisted.”
The claim was extraordinary: that nearly 25 lakh fake voters were inserted into Haryana’s electoral rolls, flipping what he called a clear Congress victory into a BJP win. The Election Commission of India asusual issued a routine statementthatthe charge was “false, misleading, and designed to undermine public trust,” while the BJP accused Gandhi of peddling “fantasies to justify serial electoral failures.”
But the Congress leader’s presentation was more than rhetoric. It was a detailed, multimedia briefing – a mix of spreadsheets, photographs, voter ID samples, and even exit poll comparisons. It left the political class rattled and the public sharply divided between disbelief and suspicion.
The Anatomy of Alleged Theft
According to Gandhi, the “vote chori” operation unfolded in several layers. “We first noticed suspicious patterns in Karnataka,” he said, “but Haryana was the most blatant.”
He claimed Congress had led overwhelmingly in postal ballots, winning 73 seats compared to the BJP’s 17, yet ended up losing the state by just 22,000 votes overall. “Postal ballots always align with EVM trends. This time, they didn’t. The math doesn’t add up,” Gandhi said.
The data, he insisted, pointed to a “pre-designed plan” executed with the complicity of electoral officials. “A plan was put in motion to convert Congress’s landslide victory into a loss,” he said, accusing the ECI of “wilful blindness.”
The Brazilian Model and Digital Doubles
If Gandhi’s tone was charged, his visuals were even more startling. Displaying a projected image of a smiling woman, he said:“Meet Seema, Sweety, Saraswati, and Vimla– all the same person. She’s a Brazilian model identified asLarissa Nery whose image was used 22 times on different voter IDs across 10 polling booths in Haryana.”
The crowd of reporters gasped.
According to Gandhi, this was “just one of 25 lakh such fake entries.” He alleged that the image was lifted from a stock photo website – “proof,” he said, “of a centralised, industrial-scale voter fraud operation.”
Among the alleged findings:
- 21 lakh duplicate voters,
- 93,000 invalid addresses, and
- 19 lakh “bulk voters” registered under single houses
Widespread manipulation through Forms 6 and 7 (used for additions and deletions). In one case, a woman’s photo was allegedly used 223 times in Mulana and 100 times in Tigaon constituencies. “This is not a clerical error,” Gandhi said. “It’s a system designed to steal elections.”
‘Vyavastha’: The Smile That Spoke Volumes
Gandhi then played a clip of Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini speaking to the media after polling. Saini, smiling, had said: “BJP will form a government on its own. We have all the arrangements (vyavastha) in place.”
“Look at his smile,” Gandhi told reporters. “What arrangement was he referring to? Every exit poll showed Congress sweeping the election, yet he was confident. That arrangement was not political; it was technical.”
He claimed that the same voter’s image appeared dozens of times with different names, genders, and ages. “That’s why the ECIdestroys CCTV footage after polling,” Gandhi alleged. “If that footage were available, you’d see the same person voting again and again.”
Duplications, Deletions, and the Vanishing Voters
The Congress leader went further, alleging that the fraud didn’t stop at fake entries – genuine voters, particularly Congress supporters, were systematically deleted.“Over 3.5 lakh names were struck off Haryana’s rolls without notice,” he said, playing video clips of individuals from Haryana and Bihar claiming their names had disappeared on polling day.
“They told us, ‘Your name is cut; you cannot vote,’” Gandhi said. “This was targeted. Our voters were erased.”
He accused the ECI of “colluding with the ruling party” by failing to act on repeated complaints and allowing dubious entries to persist.
‘From Brazil to Ballot Boxes’
In one of the sharper moments, Gandhi accused the ECI of direct complicity. “The Chief Election Commissioner says house number zero is for homeless persons,” he said, waving a voter list. “But we found bungalows and big houses with hundreds of voters attached to the same address.”
One BJP district official in Hodal, Gandhi claimed, had 66 voters registered from his home. Another “non-existent house” in the same constituency listed 501 voters.
He also cited the case of a BJP sarpanch from Mathura who, he alleged, voted both in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana under slightly altered details. “One father’s name was changed to hide duplication,” he said.
Exit Polls and Statistical Anomaly
Adding to the intrigue, Gandhi displayed charts from major exit polls – India Today-CVoter, Dainik Bhaskar, PMARQ, Matrize, and News 24 – all predicting a clear Congress victory.
“The eight closest seats were decided by just 22,779 votes while over 25 lakh votes were fake,” he said.
Political analysts noted that even if some of the claims were exaggerated, the mismatch between polling projections and actual results has reignited debate over transparency in India’s electoral system — especially regarding voter roll accuracy and EVM verifiability.
Within hours, the ECI issued what many described as its usual evasive rebuttal, echoing its past responses to Rahul Gandhi’s earlier allegations. Rather than addressing the specific data and examples presented, the ECI issued a routine statement asserting that it “maintains a transparent, verifiable, and publicly accessible electoral roll system.” Gandhi’s claims, it said, were “fabricated and misleading,” insisting that every inclusion or deletion is verified by Booth Level Officers and monitored by political representatives.
Echoes from the Opposition
Despite the denials, the Congress announced plans to formally petition the ECI for an independent audit of Haryana’s voter list. Several opposition leaders, including AAP’s Sanjay Singh and Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Sanjay Raut backed Gandhi’s demand, urging the ECI to “come clean with data instead of dismissing the allegations outright.”
Raut posted on X: “If Rahul Gandhi is wrong, prove it. Transparency is the only antidote to suspicion.”
Gandhi ended his presentation with a warning: that the “vote chori” model might already be active in Bihar. “We’re seeing the same patterns – fake voters, duplicate entries, mass deletions,” he said. “If this continues, democracy will be reduced to theatre.”
Invoking Mahatma Gandhi’s principles, he made a direct appeal to India’s youth: “Your future is being stolen. The weapon against this theft is truth and non-violence – Satya aur Ahimsa.”
As the controversy deepens, the larger question looms: is this a political storm destined to fade, or the beginning of a reckoning over India’s electoral integrity?Either way, one thing is certain – Rahul Gandhi’s “vote chori” bombshell has cracked open a new front in India’s long battle over the credibility of its democracy.