INDIA bloc plans short march as it prepares for long battle on voter rolls

Cong strategists believe Gandhi's press conference in Delhi, where he presented "evidence" of election irregularities, including alleged fraud in the Mahadevapura Assembly has struck a chord in nation

The Congress and its allies in the Opposition INDIA bloc on Sunday vowed to intensify their campaign against what they call “vote theft” in the run-up to 79th Independence Day, even as the Election Commission of India (EC) insisted that Rahul Gandhi’s allegations were built on “forged evidence”, “wrong analysis”, and “absurd conclusions”. 

On Monday morning, floor leaders of INDIA bloc parties — led by Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha — will march from Parliament House to Nirvachan Sadan, the EC’s headquarters, Congress sources said. It’s a mere kilometre’s walk, but a symbolic act of defiance, signalling that the Opposition intends to take the fight beyond the courts and onto the streets. The bloc has already done so in Bihar over the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. 

Congress strategists believe Gandhi’s Thursday press conference in Delhi — where he presented “evidence” of election irregularities, including alleged fraud in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment under the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency in the 2024 general elections — has struck a chord across India, particularly with young voters. The “vote theft” charge and protests over the SIR, they say, have also helped bring INDIA bloc’s often fractious parties onto a single platform, even as they prepare to battle each other in key state polls in April-May 2026, notably in West Bengal and Kerala. 

On Sunday, Congress launched a web portal inviting citizens to register their demand for EC accountability and to back Gandhi’s push for digital voter rolls. “Our demand from the Election Commission is clear — show transparency and make the digital voter list public, so the public and political parties can audit it themselves,” Gandhi posted on X. 

The ECI has, over the past three days, asked Gandhi to either sign a formal declaration attesting to his claims or apologise for making what it calls “fake” allegations. In the wake of his statements, chief electoral officers in Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Haryana have asked him to provide specific names of those allegedly omitted or wrongfully included in voter lists, accompanied by a signed declaration under Conduct of Election Rules. 

Union minister Bhupender Yadav accused Gandhi on Friday of using threatening language unbecoming of the Leader of the Opposition, and claimed that the Congress leader warned EC officials of consequences for aiding the BJP. At a rally in Sitamarhi, Bihar, Union Home Minister Amit Shah accused the RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal)-Congress alliance of defending a “vote bank of infiltrators from Bangladesh” by criticising the SIR. Other BJP leaders argue the revision is essential to fix anomalies in electoral rolls, anomalies Gandhi himself has cited. 

As part of the SIR, the EC recently published “draft electoral rolls” removing over 6.5 million names of those it says had died, moved permanently, or were registered in multiple locations. On Sunday, it claimed that since the Bihar draft rolls went public on August 1, no political party had approached it with requests to add or delete names, a claim INDIA bloc leaders contest. The EC said that up to 3 pm on August 10, none of the 161,000 booth-level agents (BLAs) appointed by parties had filed objections.  Only 8,341 individual forms for inclusion or deletion had been lodged. Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya countered that his party’s workers, including BLAs, were submitting complaints daily, but these were being ignored in official tallies. In some cases, he said, booth level officers were suspended following complaints -- proof, he argued, that authorities were aware of the issues. 

Addressing a Vote Adhikar rally in Bengaluru on Friday, Gandhi said he had already taken the oath in Parliament to uphold the Constitution, signalling he would not sign any declaration. (Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) chief Sharad Pawar also called for a detailed EC probe, recounting how two individuals had approached him before the 2024 Maharashtra polls promising the Opposition victory in 160 seats. “I introduced them to Rahul Gandhi,” Pawar said. “He ignored what was told to him. He believed we should not get involved in such things and instead go directly to the people.” 

On Sunday, the Karnataka chief electoral officer (CEO) sent Gandhi a notice over his claim that a woman named Shakun Rani had voted twice in Mahadevapura. “You have stated that… Smt Shakun Rani had voted twice,” the notice read. “On inquiry, she has stated she voted only once.” The EC said a preliminary inquiry conducted by the CEO’s office also revealed that the tick-marked document shown by the Congress leader in the presentation was not issued by the polling officer, the letter said. 

Beyond the dispute over the evidence itself, several former bureaucrats and politicians have expressed surprise at the EC’s combative posture towards Gandhi’s allegations, questioning why a constitutional body has not simply agreed to an impartial probe.