When will Congress stop flogging this dead horse and stop peddling conspiracy theories about Maharashtra assembly elections?
‘You can wake someone asleep, but you can’t wake someone pretending to be asleep’. Driven by sheer frustration over losing not only the assembly election in Maharashtra last year but also its ‘EVM-VVPAT hacking’ issue, the Congress party has for months been crying hoarse over imaginary voting irregularities.
Congress prince Rahul Gandhi and other leaders have been deliberately questioning the validity of around 76 lakh votes reportedly cast after the 6 pm deadline, to allege that the Election Commission of India favoured the Bhartiya Janata Party-led alliance in the Maharashtra assembly elections.
After the Election Commission invited Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi for talks over his allegations regarding the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly polls, the Congress party on Thursday responded through a letter.
The Congress party has urged the Election Commission to share a digital, machine-readable copy of the Maharashtra voter list and polling day video footage from both Maharashtra and Haryana within a week, saying they will meet the EC and present their analysis once the data is received.
In the letter, the Congress party wrote, “We request you to provide us with a machine-readable, digital copy of the Maharashtra voter lists and video footage of the polling day of Maharashtra and Haryana within a week from the date of this letter. This has been a long-standing request that should be easy for the EC to comply with. The Congress party leadership will be happy to meet with the EC soon after we have received these. In that meeting, we will even present our analysis findings to you.”
It must be recalled that the BJP-led Mahayuti coalition had won 235 out of 288 seats in the last assembly elections in Maharashtra, giving a major setback to the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), the coalition of Congress, NCP, and Shiv Sena (UBT).
Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had earlier called upon the Election Commission to publish consolidated, digital, machinereadable voter rolls for the most recent elections to the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabhas of all states, including Maharashtra, saying that “telling the truth” will protect the poll panel’s credibility.
Unsurprisingly, Rahul Gandhi cited a dubious report published by leftist propaganda outlet Newslaundry and claimed that the voter list grew by eight per cent in just five months in Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s constituency, labelling it as “vote theft”.
“In Maharashtra CM’s constituency, the voter list grew by 8 per cent in just 5 months. Some booths saw a 20-50 per cent surge. BLOs reported unknown individuals casting votes. Media uncovered thousands of voters with no verified address,” Gandhi claimed on X.
“And the EC? Silent – or complicit. These aren’t isolated glitches. This is vote theft. The cover-up is the confession. “That’s why we demand the immediate release of machine-readable digital voter rolls and CCTV footage,” Gandhi added.
Additional 76 lakh votes, voter theft, ECI compromised? Congress party peddling conspiracy theories based on the Newslaundry report, serving propaganda packaged as facts
The Newslaundry article cited by Rahul Gandhi in his X post claimed that CM Devendra Fadnavis’s seat, Nagpur West, added 29,219 new voters. The report claimed that about 162 voters were added every day, marking an 8.25 per cent increase.
Newslaundry also claimed that of 378 booths, 263 saw a “jump of over 4 percent in the electorate – in 26 booths more than 20 per cent and in four booths over 40 percent.”
Newslaundry report cited by Rahul Gandhi in his recent X post attacking the ECI
In response to Rahul Gandhi’s allegations based on the Newslaundry report, CM Devendra Fadnavis put out a detailed rebuttal. CM Fadnavis said that there are more than 25 constituencies in Maharashtra where more than 8% voters have increased between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, and Congress has won in many places.
“Rahul Gandhi, I agree that your pain of the crushing defeat in Maharashtra is increasing day by day. But for how long will you keep shooting arrows in the air? By the way, for your information, there are more than 25 constituencies in Maharashtra where more than 8% voters have increased between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections and Congress has won in many places. In the West Nagpur constituency adjoining my South-West constituency, 7% voters (27,065) increased and Congress candidate Vikas Thackeray won the election there.
“In North Nagpur, 7% (29,348) voters increased, and Congress’s Nitin Raut won. In Pune district, in Vadgaon Sheri, 10% (50,911) voters increased and Sharad Pawar faction’s Bapusaheb Pathare won. In Malad West, 11% (38,625) voters increased and your Congress party’s Aslam Sheikh won. In Mumbra, 9% (46,041) voters increased, and Sharad Pawar faction’s Jitendra Awhad won,” Fadnavis added.
“Even if not with the allies, but it would have been better if he had talked to his old colleagues like Aslam Sheikh, Vikas Thackeray, Nitin Raut of his own party, once before this tweet. At least the lack of communication in Congress would not have been displayed so badly…” he continued.
Lie louder, make unreasonable demands, cry hoarse when get called out: Congress’s coping mechanism or ground laying for renewed ‘Democracy khatre mein hai’ campaign?
Notably, Rahul Gandhi had earlier also raised questions over the transparency and integrity of the Election Commission and claimed that the ECI is ‘destroying evidence’, including 45-day CCTV footage. “Voter list? Will not provide machine-readable format. CCTV footage? It was hidden by changing the law. Photo-video of the election? Now, not in 1 year, we will destroy it in 45 days only. The one from whom the answer was needed is destroying the evidence. It is clear – the match is fixed. And a fixed election is poison for democracy,” Gandhi wrote on X.
Gandhi demanded that the CCTV footage be made public, even as making webcasting footage of polling stations public would have violated the privacy and security concerns of voters. The ECI had slammed the Congress party and said that while such demands appeared to champion voter interest and democratic integrity, they were actually intended to achieve the “opposite objective”.
For the sake of lending credence to his conspiracy theory, Rahul Gandhi has been trying to compel the ECI to share the footage, which could allow easy identification of voters and non-voters, exposing them to potential pressure, discrimination, or intimidation by anti-social elements.
In this regard, the ECI officials said that if a political party received fewer votes at a specific booth, it could use CCTV footage to identify who voted and who didn’t, which could put the voters in danger.
The ECI had also clarified that they retained CCTV footage, which is used solely as an internal administrative tool, for 45 days in accordance with the legal window for filing an election petition. The ECI contended that since no election can be disputed beyond this time period, retaining the video would allow non-contestants to exploit it to disseminate disinformation and other nefarious agendas. They further stated that the footage is saved and made available to the appropriate court upon request if an election petition is filed within 45 days.
Congress scion claimed 7,000 fake voters registered from one building in Shirdi, caught lying again
Not only this, in February this year, Rahul Gandhi also claimed in parliament that 7,000 voters had been registered from “one building” in the Shirdi constituency, in a period of five months after the Lok Sabha polls last year. Gandhi insinuated that fake voters were added from this common address. However, it turned out that contrary to the claim made by Rahul Gandhi, the number was close to 3,000, that too not from one single building in Shirdi.
These were mostly students residing in hostels in the Loni town under the Shirdi seat. In their forms, the college they are enrolled in is the registered address, and hence the common address across students.
Elaborating on the common address among the 3,000 registered voters, Ahilyanagar District Collector Siddharam Salimath told IE, “When we first received the complaint from a political party, we informed the Election Commission (EC) about the reality. The increase of voters from the centre in question was about 3,000 voters. There are educational institutions in the Loni area, and the new voters are students from hostels of one of those institutions.”
He added, “If a person is above 18 years of age, he or she can choose where to vote from with the necessary documents. Since the students are residing in hostels, the college admission papers are taken as residence proof.”
The officer had also stated that a thorough cross-check was done to see if any voter registered twice; however, no such discrepancy was found. Thus, Rahul Gandhi’s another claim turned out to be misleading.
Rahul Gandhi lied about 65 lakh additional votes in the Maharashtra elections during his US visit
Even during his two-day visit to the United States in April 2025, Rahul Gandhi claimed that the electoral process was manipulated to favour the Bhartiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti Alliance in the Maharashtra elections. The Congress scion alleged that something is “very wrong with the system.”
Citing the example of the Maharashtra elections, Rahul Gandhi claimed that there was an addition of 65 lakh voters to the voter turnout in two hours, which was impossible.
“It is very clear to us that the Election Commission is compromised, and it is very clear that there is something wrong with the system. I have said this multiple times…More people voted in the Maharashtra Assembly elections than there are adults in Maharashtra. The Election Commission gave us a voting figure for 5:30 PM, and between 5:30 PM and 7:30 PM, 65 lakh voters voted. This is physically impossible. For a voter to vote, it takes approximately 3 minutes, and if you do the Math, it would mean that there were lines of voters till 2 AM, but this did not happen…When we asked them for the videography, they not only refused but they also changed the law so that now we are not allowed to ask for the videography…” Gandhi said.
The Indian Express platformed Rahul Gandhi to peddle lies about Maharashtra and Lok Sabha elections
In June 2025, Gandhi wrote a misleading opinion piece in The Indian Express, wherein he desperately tried to dub the party’s loss in the 2024 Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha election as the result of ‘industrial-scale rigging.’ From questioning appointment process of Election Commissioners, making misleading claims of inflated voter registration, lying about increased voter turnout to mindlessly conflating Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha results, Rahul Gandhi blamed everything under the sun for his party’s nonchalant performance in the Maharashtra elections and the Lok Sabha elections perhaps as a coping mechanism or to lay ground for a wider political campaign that would allow him to play victim of the ‘system’ while also dodging accountability for his party’s political incompetence. OpIndia published a detailed and fact-based rebuttal to Rahul Gandhi’s lies.
ECI debunked Congress’s lies about inflated voter turnout in Maharashtra elections
After the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections, the Election Commission of India (ECI) wrote a detailed letter to the Congress party debunking their lies pointwise. Regarding Congress’s allegation of inflated voter turnout, the apex poll body explained how an increased voter turnout in the final hours of voting is a normal phenomenon. The ECI pointed out how it is impossible to change the actual voter turnout, as the statutory Form 17C, which contains the details of voter turnout, is provided to the authorised agents of candidates at the polling booth at the time of closing of the poll. The ECI also refuted Congress’s allegation that the number of voters was arbitrarily added and removed from the electoral rolls.
Back in November 2024, Congress used the dubious report published by leftist propaganda outlet The Wire, and now the party is using a similar, zero-per-cent-fact-hundred-per-cent-propaganda report by another leftist outlet, Newslaundry.
As reported earlier, TheWire had claimed that 5,04,313 additional votes were cast during the Maharashtra state elections. The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Maharashtra had debunked these lies. He stated that TheWire report had included 5,38,225 postal ballots in the votes counted, which was not part of the votes polled data released by the CEO Maharashtra. It highlighted that 6,40,88,195 votes were cast in all 288 Assembly seats through EVMs, which has been “mischievously” displayed as the overall number of votes cast.
The fact that Rahul Gandhi fails to substantiate his allegations and that his lies have been repeatedly debunked by the Election Commission after each election does not make a difference to Gandhi. That is because his motive is not to bring about transparency or accountability but to save his face and shift the blame to an external source after his party’s repeated election defeats. Gandhi and his party have repeated their same old, done-to-death excuses for losing elections so many times that they have become the standard, go-to excuses for any political party that loses an election in the country.
Congress claimed irregularities in the Maharashtra electoral roll, ECI debunked the lies
In April this year, the election commission refuted the accusations of irregularities in Maharashtra’s electoral roll published in January this year. Hardly any first or second appeals were made under Section 24 of the Representation of People Act, or correction of any entries in Electoral Rolls (Section 22) or Inclusion (Section 23) during the recent Special Summary Revision published on January 6-7, 2025. The ECI said that only 89 appeals for changes with the district election office and only one with the chief electoral office were filed against 9.7 crore registered voters. The ECI asserted that this negligible number contradicts the claims made by opposition parties in parliament’s winter session.
Bombay High Court adds to Congress embarrassment, dismisses petition challenging 2024 Maharashtra elections
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea seeking to annul the November 2024 Maharashtra Assembly election results over alleged voting irregularities.
The petition, filed by Mumbai resident Chetan Chandrakant Ahire and argued by Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi leader Prakash Ambedkar, questioned the validity of around 76 lakh votes reportedly cast after the 6 pm deadline. It alleged a lack of transparency and claimed a suspicious surge in late voting, raising doubts about the electoral process.
The bench of Justices GS Kulkarni and Arif Doctor, however, found no merit in the arguments, noting that similar voting trends in past elections, including the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, were never challenged. The court stated that unless there was clear evidence linking post-6 pm votes to any candidate’s victory, the allegations were baseless.
While dismissing the petition, the court refrained from imposing costs despite noting the significant time lost. The Election Commission’s counsel had also questioned the petitioner’s locus standi and the absence of victorious candidates in the case, arguments the court agreed with.
“We have no manner of doubt that this writ petition needs to be summarily rejected. It is accordingly rejected. The hearing of this petition has practically taken the whole day, leaving aside our urgent cause list, and for such reason, the petition would certainly warrant dismissal with costs; however, we refrain from doing so,” the court said.
It was indeed a waste of judicial time, since the ECI had on multiple occasions refuted these allegations, asserting the transparency of the process, with over 1 lakh booth-level officers, 288 returning officers, over 1 lakh booth-level agents, including 28,421 from the Congress party itself, overseeing the elections. Despite this, Congress and its undeclared Prime Minister aspirant persist in demanding digital voter rolls, CCTV footage and whatnot, painting the routine electoral practices as some sort of sinister anomalies just because his party failed to secure victory.
Why is Congress pretending to be asleep? Why is the party clinging to a narrative devoid of facts but loaded only with conspiracy theories?
Although EVM hacking and VVPAT tempering allegations brought nothing but criticism and embarassment for the Congress party, the question arises why the grand old party is clinging to an even more sinister narrative around voter turnout, inflated voter numbers, and whatnot to directly attack the ECI. Well, the answer lies in desperation and deflection. Having suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Mahayuti alliance, Congress is unwilling to introspect on electoral failures such as a lack of appealing leadership, a weak campaign, or failure to come up with better counters to the BJP-led alliance’s poll agenda. Instead of introspecting, Congress has resorted to masking its own shortcomings by casting aspersions on the ECI’s integrity and mindlessly alleging systemic manipulation.
Even as Congress’s claims of EVM hacking and VVPAT tempering were largely dismissed by the voters and even the courts as baseless, Congress pivoted to the ‘additional voters’ conspiracy theory. However, the recent remarks by the Bombay High Court on the petition that essentially put forth the same claims made by the Congress party regarding the Maharashtra poll results suggest that Congress’s strategy is backfiring spectacularly. The voters notice that the Congress party accepts the results of the elections conducted by the same ECI when it secures victory; however, it comes up with myriad conspiracy theories in the face of defeat. The voter notices how Congress projects its rare victories as ‘triumph’ of democracy by fighting the BJP-controlled ‘system’ while its defeat as ‘hum haare nahin hume haraya gaya hai’ [we didn’t lose, we were made to lose].
Congress’s disgraceful persistence in furthering debunked claims inadvertently goes in favour of its opponents, as the party is alienating voters who see through the party’s rhetoric as sour grapes. By doubling down on demands for voter lists and CCTV footage, Congress is playing a Gobbelsian trick of repeating a lie until it becomes truth. Congress is clinging to the apocryphal narrative that the party and its media allies have concocted since their strategy is not to seek answers but only to keep repeating the same lies in the form of questions to keep the flame of ‘JanNayak fighting the system’ burning. As long as the questions appear to remain unanswered, Congress will be able to dodge accountability for its own failures while also presenting itself as a ‘victim’ of a ‘system’ hijacked by its nemesis, the BJP.
If the party had any real intention of seeking factual answers, Congress would have sent its representative to the ECI office when the poll body invited the party to have its questions answered and before that they would have done some introspection as to why are they being rejected by the voters. Instead, Congress comes up with long and repetitive letters to push a false narrative that somehow they are keen to find the ‘truth’, but the ECI is avoiding them since they are hand in glove with the BJP. However, this charade is more harm than benefit to the Congress party, as no one but its own supportive ecosystem is buying its lies.
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