Rahul Gandhi Alleges 'Vote Chori' in Haryana—Claims Disproved by Investigation

Key Points

On Wednesday, 5 November 2025, Rahul Gandhi took to the stage to announce newfound evidence of ‘vote chori’ in Haryana during the 2024 Assembly Elections. Following up on his claims, The Indian Express conducted an investigation, only to conclude that the allegations were false.

Gandhi alleged that there were 25 lakh cases of voter fraud in Haryana, stemming from duplicate entries, invalid addresses, bulk voting, and misuse of forms 6 & 7, which have to do with voter addition and deletion respectively. These 25 lakh cases account for 12.5% of Haryana’s total 2 crore electorate.

Out of these cases, Gandhi focused on a few specific instances: two cases of invalid addresses in Hodal village in Haryana’s Palwal district, and one case of bulk voting in Rai village in Sonipat, where one woman voted 22 times across ten booths.

In Hodal, Gandhi alleged that there were two houses with multiple voters registered under them – one with 66 names, the other with 501. In Rai, he said that a stock photo of a Brazilian woman was used in multiple cards and attached to different names like Seema, Sweety, Saraswati, Rashmi, etc. “She votes 22 times in 10 different booths in Haryana,” Gandhi said.

These instances were probed by The Indian Express and disproven.

The Indian Express ‘Vote Chori’ Investigation

Hodal

66 Voters, One House

Upon visiting the specified addresses in Palwal, the Indian Express team found that the house with 66 enumerated voters was registered in the name of the BJP zila parishad vice-president, Umeh Gudhrana. This was in line with Gandhi’s claims.

The property spans ten acres of land – five used for farming, five residential. Speaking to Gudhrana and his family, the team found out that all the 66 voters belong to the same extended family. Gudhrana’s father and his three brothers had first moved onto the plot 80 years ago. Since then, the family has only grown.

“Four generations of our family live together,” Gudhrana told the publication, “There is no question of vote theft. My voter ID was made in 2009, and whoever from my family gets a voter ID made, the BLO writes the address as House Number 150 only.”

House number 150 was the address of the first concrete house built on the plot in 1986. More houses have been built on the residential plot since, but all have used the same address.

See Also: Rahul Gandhi Alleges Voter Fraud Using Brazilian Model’s Profile, Promises to Drop “Hydrogen Bomb” Evidence

500 Voters, One House

The second house – number 265 – had 501 voters registered under it. The property itself spans 25-30 acres. Speaking to families living on the plot, the Indian Express team found out that initially the entire area was owned by a single family.

The plot was earlier owned by the great-grandfather of Ram Sorout, one of the current residents on the property. “Before 1980, the whole piece of land was used for farming with little residential area, but as our family increased, many houses were built while many acres were sold,” said Sorout, who lives there with seven direct family members and six generations of his extended family.

The team found out that there are currently 200 houses and three private schools built on the property, many owned by other families as well. All of them use the same address.

Rai

22 Voters, One Photo

Of the 22 people with the same photo in Sonipat, the Indian Express team met with three and talked to one over the phone. All four of the women had voted this past election and did not even know there was any discrepancy until Gandhi raised it publicly.

“We all voted recently, and I don’t recall any issue. Here, the photo is clearly wrong,” said the daughter of one of the women.

All but one of the women had their own photos on their EPIC cards, and the fourth’s card had a photo of a neighbour. She submitted her card back to the BLO for correction and has yet to receive an update.

Both the current and the previous BLOs of the concerned booth were not aware of how the discrepancy pointed out by Gandhi occurred.

So, Was There Any Vote Chori?

The Indian Express disproved at least two of Gandhi’s claims concerning the 2024 Haryana Assembly Elections. It is worth noting that in both of the above assemblies, the Congress candidates lost by narrow margins.

Addressing a separate claim, India Today also identified two booths where Gandhi had claimed discrepancies and duplication of voters. What they discovered, however, was that the Congress had performed better in those constituencies.

Speaking to one of the BLOs from the assembly, India Today reporters brought up Gandhi’s claims. “When I was surveying, I found the same photo had appeared three times,” the BLO said about the stock photo, pointing to a technical error. “I corrected those who had submitted their own photos. But for others whose originals weren't available, the misprint stayed.”

So, while these charges don’t hold water, others still leave many questions unanswered.

Following Gandhi’s claims of ‘vote chori’ in Karnataka, access to form 6 & 7 details was revoked by the ECI. Additionally, the election body only made accessible the details of the SIR exercise undertaken in Bihar after pressure from the Supreme Court – and even then, not in machine readable format. And beyond that, other independent investigations undertaken into the roll revision process revealed undue deletions, duplicates, and discrepancies that have yet to be addressed.

The Congress plans to submit a memorandum with over 5 crore signatures to President Droupadi Murmu on 8 November 2025, urging corrective action in the 'vote chori' issue.