Onmanorama Explains | What Rahul Gandhi’s 'H Files' reveal about alleged voter fraud in Haryana

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has launched a scathing attack on the Election Commission, accusing it of colluding with the BJP to "steal" the 2024 Haryana Assembly election. At a press conference in New Delhi, he presented what he called "proof" of large-scale voter fraud and manipulation of electoral rolls.

Here's a breakdown of his major allegations:

Fake voter entries:
Gandhi claimed that 25.41 lakh entries in Haryana’s electoral list were fake — amounting to one in every eight voters in the state.

Duplicate and invalid records:
He cited examples of duplicate voters, invalid addresses, and instances of multiple votes cast by the same individuals.

‘Brazilian model’ photo misuse:
The photo of a Brazilian model was allegedly used 22 times in 10 polling booths in the Rai constituency, according to Gandhi’s presentation.

‘Operation Sarkar Chori’:
He accused the Election Commission of launching an operation to "convert a Congress landslide victory into a loss", dubbing it “Operation Sarkar Chori”.

Collusion with the BJP:
Gandhi alleged that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and two other commissioners "colluded" with the BJP and were "in partnership" with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure the ruling party’s win.

Dispute over ‘zero house numbers’:
Gandhi said the CEC “lied to the public” by justifying “house number zero” entries for homeless voters, calling it a cover-up for fake registrations.

Postal ballot anomaly:
He claimed Congress had a majority in postal ballots (73 seats to BJP’s 17), yet lost the election — calling it an unprecedented discrepancy.

Cross-state voting:
Gandhi alleged that thousands of BJP-linked voters cast votes both in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

‘Vote chori’ extended beyond Haryana:
He said the same “vote theft” model is now being applied in Bihar and has previously been used in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura and Aland constituencies.

Impact on democracy:
Gandhi said India’s democracy has been “murdered” and urged opposition parties to unite against what he termed the “Special Intensive Revision” (SIR) system that facilitates manipulation.

The Election Commission, however, dismissed the allegations as "unfounded", pointing out that no formal appeals were filed against the Haryana rolls and questioning why Congress booth agents did not flag any irregularities during polling.

In the 2024 Haryana Assembly polls, the BJP won 48 seats, Congress 37, the INLD 2, and independents 3.