Congress To Scale Up Rahul Gandhi’s Vote Theft Campaign In Uttar Pradesh

New Delhi: The Congress has decided to scale up Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi's vote theft campaign in Uttar Pradesh by seeking clarifications from the Election Commission of India (ECI) over alleged voter list manipulations in all the 75 districts.

The move has come after Rahul's repeated allegations of vote theft in the past elections since his first revelations on August 7 and no response from the poll panel which instead sought an affidavit or an apology from the former Congress chief.

While the Congress supporters and the other opposition leaders are awaiting Rahul's next set of revelations as promised by him, the Uttar Pradesh unit has decided to launch a counter drive of its own.

Over the coming days, the grand old party's heads in all the 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh will write letters to the ECI listing the alleged voter list manipulations in their areas. Alongside, the district teams will also submit affidavits for the same and seek a clarification from the poll panel, said party insiders.

"Rahul Gandhi has been seeking clarifications over his vote theft allegations for more than a month but there has been no response from the ECI, which asked him to submit an affidavit first. Further, we recently heard three former chief election commissioners who supported Rahul Gandhi's views and suggested the panel should investigate the charges made by him,"All India Congress Committee (AICC) in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Avinash Pande told ETV Bharat.

"Now all 75 of our district teams are going to write to the ECI over the alleged voter list manipulations. They will also submit affidavits and seek a clarification from the poll panel," added Pande.

The state unit was researching the data across districts but it was taking time as the voter list was available in hard copy which takes time to analyse unlike the soft copy which can be analysed quickly.

"Such complaints run into lakhs. Large scale manipulations have been found in districts Varanasi, Bansgaon, Devaria, Maharajganj, Khanpur and Amroha. Research is going on across the state. The Youth Congress is also involved in the drive. The legal department too is working on the complaints," added Pande.

The AICC functionary backed state unit chief Ajay Rai's recent allegations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 2024 victory in the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat was also under doubt. Rai, who contested against Modi, had been alleging that updates based on counting of votes in the seat had been stopped mid-way and the PM was declared winner in the evening. "That is true," Pande asserted.

The AICC insiders further said that the Congress was focusing on the urban areas in Uttar Pradesh and had started a vote theft awareness campaign in 98 local wards of Varanasi. Similar campaigns would be organised in other cities, they said, adding the grand old party has also asked booth-level teams to monitor the voter list additions and deletions that will take place before the 2026 local body elections to ensure the voter list is clean.

The Congress had contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh in an alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP). Out of total 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the SP contested 63 and won 37. The Congress contested 17 seats and won 6 seats. Together the Congress, SP won 43 seats. As a result, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) seats came down from 64 in 2019 to 36. The two parties also plan to contest the 2027 assembly elections together to take on the BJP.

Rahul Gandhi is the Lok Sabha MP from Rae Bareli. The Congress, which is trying to strengthen its organisation over the past months, had started off a series of vote theft rallies in Sitapur on September 7.

"The vote theft rally saw a massive turnout of people, which proved that the public will no longer tolerate the BJP's rigging and theft of the people's mandate. The Constitution has granted every citizen the right to an equal vote, but the BJP government, in collusion with the ECI, is continuously snatching away this right. Hundreds of voters are being added to each household, and names of opposition voters are being systematically deleted," Congress Sitapur Lok Sabha MP Rakesh Rathore told ETV Bharat.

"This is not just electoral fraud but a direct attack on democracy. Together with the people, the Congress will fight this battle with full vigour and save democracy," added Rathore.