Vote chori allegations made by Rahul Gandhi incorrect, baseless, says ECI

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday dismissed all allegations made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi regarding “vote chori”, mentioning that no voter’s name can be deleted by a member of the public through online.

“Allegations made by Rahul Gandhi are incorrect and baseless. No deletion of any vote can be done online by any member of the public, as misconceived by Rahul Gandhi. No deleting can take palce without giving an opportunity of being heard to the affected person”, the ECI said in a statement. The ECI also said that allegations made by Rahul Gandhi against CEC Gyanesh Kumar are baseless and incorrect.

Allegations made by Shri Rahul Gandhi are incorrect and baseless.#ECIFactCheck

Read in detail in the image attached https://t.co/mhuUtciMTF pic.twitter.com/n30Jn6AeCr

— Election Commission of India (@ECISVEEP) September 18, 2025

Earlier in a press conference at the Congress headquarters, the leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha had claimed that he has “10 per cent proof” that the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar is “protecting vote chors (vote thieves).”

He said that a group of people is using a centralised method through software and impersonating real voters and deleting their names from the voter lists. However, the poll body has said that in 2023, certain “unsuccessful attempts” were made to delete certain votes, and a complaint was filed on the order of ECI itself.

“In 2023, certain unsuccessful attempts were made for deletion of electors in Aland Assembly constituency and an FIR was filed by the authority of ECI itself to investigate the matter”, the poll body said. The ECI pointed out the Congress leader B R Patil won the Assembly elections from Aland in 2023, while BJP’s Subadh Guttedar won in 2018.

This is another milestone in setting up and demonstrating to the youth of this country how elections are being rigged. I am going to make a strong claim about EC Gyanesh Kumar.

I am going to show the people of India proof that is black and white and absolutely clear that the EC… pic.twitter.com/OhFwqCoAjS

— Congress (@INCIndia) September 18, 2025

Earlier in the press conference, Rahul Gandhi alleged that there was ana attempt to delete more than 6,000 voters names from the Aland constituency in Karnataka “In Aland, Karnataka, 6018 votes, somebody tried to delete these votes. We don’t know the total number of votes deleted in 2023 elections, but somebody got caught. It was caught, by most crimes, by a coincidence. What happened was that the Booth Level officer noticed that her uncle’s vote has been deleted,” he said.

The Opposition parties have been repeatedly claiming that the Election Commission of India, colluding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is deleting and adding fraudulent votes in the voter rolls in various elections. The Congress leader has claimed that fraud has taken place in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, and also in various assembly segments, including in Bengaluru’s Mahadevpura segment. (ANI)