AAP’s Saurabh Bharadwaj Backs Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Vote Theft’ Charge, Says It Can’t Be An Election Issue

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Saurabh Bharadwaj has backed Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s claims of “organised vote theft” in India but said that while electoral manipulation must be exposed, it cannot become an election issue.

“There is an organised vote chori happening across India. I am convinced because I have seen it firsthand in Delhi,” Bharadwaj told The Indian Express on Monday, according to Mint. “As a voter, I don’t think people vote thinking that since there was vote chori, they will not vote for the BJP. You can’t really make it an election issue — but you can make it a mass movement across the country,” he added.

Bharadwaj, who heads AAP’s Delhi unit, said he had personally witnessed irregularities during the 2024 Delhi Assembly elections, when he lost the Greater Kailash seat to BJP’s Shikha Rai. “When I lost in Delhi, in my constituency — as a sitting MLA — I knew I was winning. Even the BJP knew it. So when I lost, I was convinced there was some kind of manipulation,” he said.

Citing figures from the capital’s New Delhi constituency, Bharadwaj claimed that during the 2020 Assembly polls there were 1.48 lakh votes, which rose to about 1.6 lakh by December 2024. “Yet, 42,000 votes had already been deleted,” he alleged, adding that many voters named in deletion applications later said they had never submitted such requests.

According to Mint, Bharadwaj said that then Delhi Chief Minister Atishi had submitted a written complaint to the Election Commission (EC) with evidence of alleged voter deletions, but no first information report (FIR) had been filed. “I filed an RTI in August 2025, almost eight months after we had submitted the complaint, asking for its status. For every question, the reply was the same: We have no information,” he said.

Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the EC of systematically manipulating voter rolls and vote counts to benefit the ruling party. He made the allegations during a ‘voter adhikar’ rally in Bihar ahead of the state’s assembly polls, reported Mint.

The Election Commission, however, has rejected Gandhi’s accusations. On Wednesday, it released a list of “important facts” related to the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections on social media, countering claims that votes were rigged in favour of the BJP. Gandhi had alleged that around 25 lakh votes were “stolen” in Haryana through the inclusion of duplicate, invalid, and bulk voters.

“There is an organised vote chori happening across India. I am convinced because I have seen it firsthand in Delhi,” Bharadwaj reiterated, calling for greater scrutiny of the electoral process even as the EC continues to deny any wrongdoing.

(With inputs from Mint)