New Delhi: India’s Leader of the Opposition and senior Congress lawmaker Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of using the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as a “weapon” to selectively delete voters from communities and polling booths that traditionally support the Congress, particularly in Gujarat.
Addressing the issue publicly, Gandhi alleged large-scale voter suppression and claimed that the Election Commission of India (EC) was complicit in what he described as an organized effort to manipulate the electoral process.
“The most serious truth is that the Election Commission is no longer the guardian of democracy but has become the main accomplice in this vote theft conspiracy,” Gandhi said.
In a post on social media, Gandhi asserted that the SIR exercise in Gujarat was not a routine administrative process but a deliberate and strategic attempt to influence election outcomes. He alleged that thousands of objections to voter registrations had been filed using identical names, calling it one of the most “shocking and dangerous” aspects of the exercise.
Gandhi further claimed that similar tactics had previously been used in Karnataka and Maharashtra and are now being replicated in Gujarat and Rajasthan. According to him, the pattern emerges in states where the BJP fears electoral defeat.
“Wherever the BJP faces defeat, voters themselves are made to disappear from the system,” he said, citing alleged irregularities in constituencies such as Aaland and Rajura.
The Congress leader accused the BJP of undermining the constitutional principle of “one person, one vote” by weaponizing the SIR process to remove opposition supporters from voter lists.
Earlier, the Gujarat Congress echoed these allegations in a post on social media platform X, accusing the BJP and the Election Commission of colluding in what it termed a “next-level model of election theft.” The party alleged widespread irregularities in the objection process during the voter roll revision.
Neither the BJP nor the Election Commission has issued an immediate response to the allegations.
The controversy has added to ongoing political tensions over electoral transparency and the role of independent institutions ahead of upcoming elections in several Indian states.