Rahul Gandhi Alleges 727 Voters Deleted From Bela Estate Rolls, Calls It ‘Vote Theft’

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused the Election Commission of deleting the names of 727 residents of Delhi’s Bela Estate from the electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), calling the move a “method of vote theft”.

Gandhi visited the Bela Estate area along the Yamuna and spoke to residents about their grievances. He said 728 people lived in the area but only one name remained on the voter list after the SIR exercise. His claim has also been reported in connection with the draft electoral roll, which showed 728 of 729 voters in a polling part covering the Bela Estate settlement excluded from the draft roll.

Gandhi said the residents had lived in the area for decades and had voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha and 2025 Delhi Assembly elections. He also said their homes were demolished in 2023 but they continued to live in the locality.

“Having a house or not has no connection to the right to vote,” Gandhi said, referring to the provision for homeless voters to be registered using “House Number 0”. He questioned why the names of 727 residents had been removed.

“This isn’t SIR — this is a method of vote theft,” Gandhi said.

Bela Estate Residents Dispute ‘Shifted’ Classification

Reports on the Bela Estate draft roll said residents disputed their classification as having shifted from the area after their homes were demolished. They said they had moved only a short distance and continued to live in the same locality.

The issue has emerged as one of the contentious cases in Delhi’s SIR exercise. The draft roll showed a large number of voters from the polling part excluded, with residents saying Booth Level Officers had distributed and collected enumeration forms before their names disappeared from the draft list.

Gandhi said the deletion amounted to taking away the voting rights of people who were already among the most vulnerable.

“From those who already have the least, their only power is being snatched away,” he said, adding that Gyanesh Kumar would eventually leave office but “the system that made him do this will also have to answer”.

The Election Commission has provided a claims-and-objections process for people left out of the draft rolls, allowing eligible voters to seek inclusion.

Rahul Gandhi Targets CEC Over Separate BJP Ticket Claim

Gandhi's latest attack came days after he accused CEC Gyanesh Kumar of “match-fixing” elections, citing a claim by former Kerala Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson.

Thomson has alleged that Kumar, then a serving IAS officer, approached him in 2016 and suggested that he contest the 2019 Lok Sabha election as a BJP candidate from Pathanamthitta. Thomson said he declined the suggestion.

Gandhi cited Thomson's account to accuse Kumar of helping recruit candidates for the BJP while he was a government officer and later overseeing elections as CEC.

Thomson's account, however, is an allegation about a conversation he says took place in 2016. It does not by itself establish Gandhi's broader allegation that Kumar subsequently interfered with elections. Kumar has not publicly responded to the allegation, according to reports.

The controversy comes amid an escalating political dispute over the ECI's handling of SIR. An Indian Express report said Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had recorded objections on several occasions concerning decisions related to electoral rolls and the SIR process.

The Election Commission has said differences of opinion and written observations are part of its internal deliberations and maintained that decisions concerning the SIR schedule were taken with the unanimous approval of all three commissioners.

The Congress has continued to demand Kumar's resignation, while the ECI has defended its decision-making process amid the widening political row.

(With ANI Inputs)