Saurabh Mukherjee
Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday (September 18) levelled serious allegations against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing him of shielding those behind what he described as a “vote theft” operation in Karnataka’s Aland constituency.
Gandhi claimed that 6,018 votes were deleted through impersonation, using mobile numbers from outside the state and a software-driven mechanism that systematically targeted booths where the Congress was performing strongly.
Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, Gandhi alleged that an automated program was used to exploit the names of voters listed at serial number 1 in polling booths, filing deletion applications in their names.
He pointed out that despite an FIR lodged in February 2023 and 18 letters sent by the Karnataka CID to the Election Commission in the past 18 months, no substantial response was given.
“Now this is absolute solid proof that Gyanesh Kumar is protecting the people who are doing this. This is also absolute solid proof that I’ve shown you that this is being done in a centralised way, this is being done at scale, and this is being done using large resources,” Gandhi said.
According to him, eight out of the ten booths that recorded the maximum deletions were Congress strongholds in the 2018 assembly elections. The pattern was detected after a booth-level officer discovered her uncle’s name had been deleted and later learned her neighbour’s name was also struck off without consent.
Gandhi presented testimonies of voters, including Godabai, who said her identity was used to delete 12 voters, and Suryakant, who allegedly filed 12 deletion forms in 14 minutes. Another case involved a voter named Nagaraj, purportedly submitting two forms within 36 seconds at 4 am.
“This was not done at a worker level. This was done at a call centre level,” Gandhi said, asserting that the deletions were planned centrally and carried out at scale to favour the BJP.
He also alleged that the Election Commission had ignored repeated requests from the Karnataka CID to share IP addresses, device ports, and OTP trails linked to the deletions.
“The FIR is filed in February 2023. Karnataka CID writes to ECI requesting all details of these numbers and these transactions almost immediately in March. In August, EC gives the reply. It doesn’t fulfil any of the demands and doesn’t give us the information,” Gandhi added.
Soon after his remarks, the Election Commission issued a rebuttal on X, rejecting the allegations as “incorrect and baseless.”
While it insisted that “no deletion of any voter can be done online by any member of the public as misconceived by Shri Rahul Gandhi,” the poll body acknowledged that “unsuccessful attempts” were made in 2023 to delete voters in Aland, for which an FIR had been registered by its own authority.
The EC also noted that Aland was won by BJP’s Subadh Guttedar in 2018 and by Congress’s B.R. Patil in 2023. Gandhi, however, demanded that the Commission hand over all relevant evidence to the Karnataka CID within a week.
In a later post on X, Gandhi sharpened his attack, alleging that the probe was being obstructed.
“After our Aland candidate exposed the fraud, the local EC official filed an FIR, but the CID investigation has been – BLOCKED by CEC. The Karnataka CID has written 18 letters in 18 months requesting all incriminating evidence – BLOCKED by CEC. The Karnataka EC has sent multiple requests to ECI to comply with the investigation – BLOCKED by CEC. Details of destination IP, device ports, and OTP trails have been withheld – BLOCKED by CEC,” he wrote.
“If this vote theft had not been caught and the 6,018 votes had been deleted, our candidate could have lost the election. CEC Gyanesh Kumar – stop giving excuses. Release the evidence to the Karnataka CID,” Gandhi demanded.
Gandhi claimed that 6,018 votes were deleted through impersonation, using mobile numbers from outside the state and a software-driven mechanism that systematically targeted booths where the Congress was performing strongly.
Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, Gandhi alleged that an automated program was used to exploit the names of voters listed at serial number 1 in polling booths, filing deletion applications in their names.
He pointed out that despite an FIR lodged in February 2023 and 18 letters sent by the Karnataka CID to the Election Commission in the past 18 months, no substantial response was given.
“Now this is absolute solid proof that Gyanesh Kumar is protecting the people who are doing this. This is also absolute solid proof that I’ve shown you that this is being done in a centralised way, this is being done at scale, and this is being done using large resources,” Gandhi said.
According to him, eight out of the ten booths that recorded the maximum deletions were Congress strongholds in the 2018 assembly elections. The pattern was detected after a booth-level officer discovered her uncle’s name had been deleted and later learned her neighbour’s name was also struck off without consent.
Gandhi presented testimonies of voters, including Godabai, who said her identity was used to delete 12 voters, and Suryakant, who allegedly filed 12 deletion forms in 14 minutes. Another case involved a voter named Nagaraj, purportedly submitting two forms within 36 seconds at 4 am.
“This was not done at a worker level. This was done at a call centre level,” Gandhi said, asserting that the deletions were planned centrally and carried out at scale to favour the BJP.
Example number ONE:
— Congress (@INCIndia) September 18, 2025
A lady called Godabai. Someone created fake logins, deleted 12 voters, and attempted to delete—because this attempt was stopped. Godabai, of course, has no idea.
These were the cell phone numbers that were used to delete these people from voter list. These… pic.twitter.com/UzYkIv2opS
He also alleged that the Election Commission had ignored repeated requests from the Karnataka CID to share IP addresses, device ports, and OTP trails linked to the deletions.
“The FIR is filed in February 2023. Karnataka CID writes to ECI requesting all details of these numbers and these transactions almost immediately in March. In August, EC gives the reply. It doesn’t fulfil any of the demands and doesn’t give us the information,” Gandhi added.
Soon after his remarks, the Election Commission issued a rebuttal on X, rejecting the allegations as “incorrect and baseless.”
While it insisted that “no deletion of any voter can be done online by any member of the public as misconceived by Shri Rahul Gandhi,” the poll body acknowledged that “unsuccessful attempts” were made in 2023 to delete voters in Aland, for which an FIR had been registered by its own authority.
The EC also noted that Aland was won by BJP’s Subadh Guttedar in 2018 and by Congress’s B.R. Patil in 2023. Gandhi, however, demanded that the Commission hand over all relevant evidence to the Karnataka CID within a week.
In a later post on X, Gandhi sharpened his attack, alleging that the probe was being obstructed.
“After our Aland candidate exposed the fraud, the local EC official filed an FIR, but the CID investigation has been – BLOCKED by CEC. The Karnataka CID has written 18 letters in 18 months requesting all incriminating evidence – BLOCKED by CEC. The Karnataka EC has sent multiple requests to ECI to comply with the investigation – BLOCKED by CEC. Details of destination IP, device ports, and OTP trails have been withheld – BLOCKED by CEC,” he wrote.
“If this vote theft had not been caught and the 6,018 votes had been deleted, our candidate could have lost the election. CEC Gyanesh Kumar – stop giving excuses. Release the evidence to the Karnataka CID,” Gandhi demanded.
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