Rahul Gandhi’s “atom bomb” provides us with the best justification for a nationwide Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls—a process that the Congress and most opposition parties have opposed in Bihar. Speaking in Bengaluru on Thursday, 7 August, he provided what he claimed was evidence proving the existence of over one lakh fake voters in Mahadevapura in Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency.
While the Election Commission of India (ECI) has demanded a signed oath saying all the details provided by him were true, it would do well to actually check out the claims, regardless of the Gandhi scion’s arrogant claim that his statement in public constitutes an oath. At the very least, this would show that ECI is not afraid of scrutiny and correcting mistakes—which are sure to exist. Or else, why initiate a SIR in Bihar? An SIR is the only realistic way of validating genuine voters and chucking out the rest. If there can be over one lakh alleged “fake” voters in just one assembly constituency, potentially deleting 65 lakh voters from the Bihar list hardly sounds unreasonable.
While it is fair for Gandhi to point out what may be problematic with one Lok Sabha result, where the BJP won with a margin of 32,707 votes, it is quite unreasonable to allege that the BJP and the ECI were in cahoots. The BJP candidate, PC Mohan, won the seat with a 2.5 per cent margin in a constituency where over 13 lakh votes were cast in the Lok Sabha elections.
Re-examining fake voters claim
Gandhi’s broader claim, that the Bengaluru Central result was tantamount to vote-stealing, must be taken with a pinch of salt. He picked the one constituency with a significant number of Muslim voters, and polarisation and counter-polarisation are normal here. He must re-examine his premises for several reasons.
First, it is facile to assume that all the 1,00,250 “fake voters” had gone to the BJP. No one can prove that. The caveat is that not all may be fakes, and not all votes may have been cast either.
Second, according to Gandhi’s analysis, 11,965 “fake voters” were duplicates with names in other states, 40,009 had invalid addresses, 10,452 were bulk voters registered at a single address, 33,692 first-time voters had misused form 6 (used to register first-time voters or make corrections), and 4,132 voter cards did not have valid photos. In Bihar, out of the proposed deletions, 22 lakh were reported deceased, 35 lakh were migrants who may have shifted permanently out of Bihar, and another 7 lakh had their names in multiple state voter lists (ie, the equivalent of Rahul Gandhi’s “duplicate” voters). The Bihar list of likely exclusions hardly sounds unreasonable, but Gandhi won’t acknowledge that.
Third, the claim that the BJP won the Bengaluru Central seat only because of huge gains in the Mahadevapura (one of eight assembly segments in the Lok Sabha seat, where the BJP won four and the Congress the other four) is questionable. Mahadevapura, despite having many minority voters, has large numbers of migrants and middle-class voters from other states working in the IT services sector. The voter list must indeed be investigated, but it is worth pointing out two realities: these voters usually tend to vote BJP, and Mahadevapura is a BJP stronghold.
And if a sharp swing toward one party in one constituency is evidence of possible fraud, then what does one make of the Dhule Lok Sabha result in Maharashtra? In 2024, the BJP led significantly in five assembly constituencies there, but lost badly in the Muslim-dominated Malegaon Central, where the Congress’ lead of a massive 1.9 lakh votes was enough to give it a marginal victory despite losing five other assembly segments. Polarisation can lead to such skews.
Fourth, while the Congress is at liberty to make its point using the best means at its disposal, any neutral observer cannot ignore this: it chose the one constituency with a large Muslim voter base (around 3.5 lakh), and fielded a Muslim candidate (Rizwan Arshad) to harvest a bulk of minority vote.
In the last three elections, the Congress candidate here has always been Muslim, and each time a counter-consolidation helped PC Mohan win, though with declining margins between 2014, 2019, and 2024. Counter-consolidation in Mahadevapura can easily explain Mohan’s victory, even assuming there were many fake votes. Given a significant number of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, the possibility that some of them were also “fake” voters in the constituency is difficult to dismiss.
Fifth, as I have noted in an earlier article, voter lists—both additions and deletions—are supervised by temporary staff on loan from state governments. Therefore, there’s a good chance that lists can be partially manipulated. Party workers (not just BJP, but also Congress) also tend to work closely with the ECI to get their bloc of voters registered. This may skew the lists in one direction or the other. In 2018, a Congress MLA was linked to the discovery of 9,896 voter ID cards in an apartment in Bengaluru’s Jalahalli. Both BJP and Congress traded accusations against each other for being responsible for this.
Sixth, voter lists can never be totally accurate, given the large number of people moving to the richer southern states for jobs and livelihoods (not to speak of the porous border states of Bihar and West Bengal). Many migrant voters may have trouble showing address proof, which may explain why some addresses may have multiple (even 80) voters registered there. These days, Aadhaar is required in many situations, and for migrants, it makes sense to use a fixed, available address to have their Aadhaar cards delivered.
Additionally, when people move from city to city, they may change their voter IDs, but the old IDs may not be deleted. Hence, the possibility of multiple voter IDs remaining on the ECI’s books.
Seventh, the state and national voter rolls are often left unreconciled, which makes regular deletions or additions difficult to ensure.
Also read: Opposition MPs to march from Parliament to ECI office despite no police nod
Not malice but incompetence
We can conclude the following from Rahul Gandhi’s “atom bomb”.
One, there is a problem with voter lists, and fake voters can get onto those lists, but there is no reason to assume that it happened only in favour of one party in one constituency and one state. We should not attribute to malice or malign intent what can easily be explained by the Election Commission’s lack of resources and local-level failures or even incompetence.
Two, the Election Commission cannot endlessly field accusations about aiding election fraud, whether it is about EVMs or fake voters, without damaging its own credibility. Maybe, just maybe, there can be some kind of parliamentary scrutiny of its actions, scrutiny that does not impinge on its independence. A bipartisan law that ensures the Commission’s independence and helps it carry out its duties impartially is the need of the hour.
Three, the Election Commission probably needs a larger permanent staff to ensure that it is not solely dependent on state-level part-time officials who may have political leanings.
Recently, when the Election Commission ordered the West Bengal Chief Secretary to suspend four electoral registration officers and file FIRs against them for enabling bogus voters to get onto the list, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee fulminated against the order and said she won’t allow it. She also reminded block-level officers doing the Commission’s work that they are state employees, and not the Election Commission’s, which amounts to intimidation of staff working temporarily for the Commission. The Election Commission cannot be expected to produce a foolproof list if state governments have the power to threaten officials working for the Commission.
What is good about Rahul Gandhi’s “atom bomb” is that it has alerted us to the possibility of fake voters and how they may tilt close contests. However, nothing can be achieved by pretending that this is solely the work of the BJP or the Election Commission. All parties are complicit in this fraud, and should fix things while they can still be fixed.
The Election Commission and the Modi government would do well to take heed and act instead of merely scoring political points against the Gandhi scion.
R Jagannathan is the former editorial director, Swarajya magazine. He tweets @TheJaggi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
Mr Aneel Verman. Don’t read. Everyone has freedom of expression. You don’t get to deplatform someone, if you disagree with them
Why does the Print invite BJP SYMPATHIZERS to write biased articles.Mr Gupta is also toadying up to the government.Where is the “old” Shekhar Gupta?This one doesnt have a spine.
Agree with what R Jagannathan has put out in the article.
What this article doesn’t explain
1. ECI even if short staffed- would be aware of issues in Voters List. Why is it not welcoming the work of Rahul Gandhi and saying that we will investigate. Instead it is asking him to file an affidavit.
2. Why is ECI not providing digital data in today’s day and age ? Let people do its job. People can raise concern and then it only needs to check those claims ( Its like bug bounty that tech companies operate)
3. We need nationwide SIR. The biggest issue in specifically in Bihar is short timing. Doing SIR now is like operation successful but patient is dead