Flagging the exclusion of 2.06 crore names in Maharashtra’s electoral rolls after the special intensive revision (SIR) , the Congress on Tuesday (September 1, 2026) said votes were being added and deleted to ensure that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wins elections.
It had alleged that forged documentation, such as fake Aadhaar cards with mismatched names and photos, were used to add fictitious voters without physical verification of addresses. Following the 2024 Maharashtra elections, the Congress had formally submitted representations to the Election Commission alleging large-scale voter roll manipulation, including unusual voter spikes in several constituencies. Both leaders said that in West Bengal, 91% of the voter names struck off in the SIR had to be reinstated after appeals. “That means 9 out of every 10 names were wrongly deleted, and added back only after the election.
“For a government built on vote theft, the people are not important—that’s why this BJP neither listens to the people nor obeys their command,” he added. Gandhi said. I said it then, and I say it today: This was vote theft”, Mr.
On Tuesday (September 1, 2026), Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said “the BJP and the ‘vote theft commission’ keep changing their tactics, and they will continue to do so; the goal remains just one: BJP’s victory at any cost, and the end of India’s democracy”.
In a post on X , he said: “Maharashtra 2024 – Suddenly, 3.9 million new voters were added between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. “The country is now uniting against vote theft. The nation has understood the BJP’s conspiracy, the thief has been caught. Punishment will surely be meted out for holding democracy captive,” he added.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said votes are added when it suits the BJP. “Where it doesn’t, votes are split to perpetrate vote theft,” he said. He said that in Telangana and Karnataka, Congress workers faced similar manipulations every day.
I said it then, and I say it today: This was vote theft.
