Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju lashed out at Rahul Gandhi Friday after the Congress MP reprised yesterday’s ‘vote chori‘ barb – “wake up at 4 am, delete two voters in 37 seconds, then go back to sleep” – at the Election Commission and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Mr Gandhi, he said, had to accept that his leadership of the Congress had “failed”, resulting in multiple electoral defeats and the youth of India moving to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Mr Rijiju also said Rahul Gandhi had “abused” India’s democratic system after leading the Congress on that string of defeats and declared, “The nation won’t believe Rahul Gandhi…”
“The poor, the farmers, and the common people consider PM Modi their leader. After losing elections, if Rahul Gandhi keeps blaming the system to hide his weaknesses, no one can accept it. The country has changed and, under PM Modi’s leadership, India has progressed,” he said.
“People like Rahul Gandhi want to stop the engine that is driving India forward…”
Earlier today Mr Gandhi posted a 37-second excerpt from his PowerPoint presentation from Thursday, which he said had “100 per cent bullet-proof evidence” of his allegations.
In the clip he pointed out how, at 4 am on December 19, 2022, someone had opened, completed, and submitted forms to delete two names from the voter roll, all within 36 seconds.
“Wake up at 4 am, delete two voters in 36 seconds, then go back to sleep – that’s how vote theft happened! The election watchdog stayed awake, watching the theft and protecting the thieves.”
सुबह 4 बजे उठो,
36 सेकंड में 2 वोटर मिटाओ,
फिर सो जाओ – ऐसे भी हुई वोट चोरी!चुनाव का चौकीदार जागता रहा, चोरी देखता रहा, चोरों को बचाता रहा।#VoteChoriFactory pic.twitter.com/pLSKAXH1Eu
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 19, 2025
On Thursday Mr Gandhi alleged voters had been mass-deleted from Karnataka’s rolls using fake log-ins and phone numbers registered outside the state, and that this had been done using a ‘centralised software. He used a mass-deletion incident from Karnataka’s Aland as an example.
The EC hit back quickly, pointing out that it was the poll body itself that had filed a police complaint with regards to those 6,018 deleted names, and that it was the Congress, and not the BJP, that won a seat in which the opposition claimed to have lost votes due to voter fraud.
On the larger issue of deleting of voter names, the EC said categorically that this could not be done by members of the public and accused Mr Gandhi of making “baseless” allegations.
READ | Rahul Gandhi’s “Central Software Deleted Voters” Jab Gets BJP Retort
The BJP issued a scathing retort too; ex-Union Minister Anurag Thakur said the Congress had lost 90 per cent of the elections under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership. “His frustration is increasing day-by-day. It has become a habit of Rahul Gandhi to make incorrect and baseless allegations.”
Mr Gandhi and other opposition leaders have been, for some time now, targeting the poll body and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, accusing them of ‘collusion’ to commit voter fraud in federal and state elections, including in Karnataka two years ago and in Maharashtra last year.
They have alleged that similar practices are being carried out in Bihar – which votes later this year – referring to the Election Commission’s ‘special intensive revision’ of the electoral roll.
READ | Aadhaar Valid As 12th Document For Special Revision Of Voters: Supreme Court
The Bihar SIR, however, was cleared by the Supreme Court, which only directed the EC to include the Aadhaar, a common government-issued ID, on the list of accepted documents.
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