Youth Congress Marches to Raj Bhawan in Himachal, Alleging Large-Scale Vote Theft Nationwide

The Himachal Pradesh Youth Congress staged a vigorous 'Raj Bhawan Gherao' protest on Thursday, marching from the party headquarters in Shimla to the Governor's residence to denounce what they described as widespread "vote chori" (vote theft) in recent elections across India. Led by National Youth Congress General Secretary and state in-charge Shesh Narayan Ojha, the demonstrators burnt an effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of engineering fake votes and manipulating electoral rolls. The protest, part of a nationwide campaign by the Indian Youth Congress, highlighted alleged irregularities in states like Haryana, Maharashtra, Bihar, and Karnataka, where opposition parties claim over a million bogus entries favoured the ruling party.

Ojha sharply criticised the Election Commission of India (ECI) for allegedly functioning as an "extension of the ruling party", pointing to Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi's repeated unanswered queries on electoral fraud. "Despite Rahul Gandhi raising these issues through press conferences and demonstrations, the ECI has not responded even once. What is this if not arrogance or enslavement to the RSS and BJP?" Ojha questioned, vowing that the Congress would intensify street agitations until accountability is established. The group attempted to submit a memorandum to the governor for forwarding to the president but was turned away, as the official was unavailable, prompting promises of escalated actions, including booth-level voter awareness drives.

Himachal Pradesh Youth Congress President Chhatar Singh Thakur amplified the accusations, claiming specific instances of duplicity, such as BJP state chief Rajeev Bindal's daughter being registered as a voter at two locations under different parental names. "This ghost voting—whether a Brazilian model voting in 22 constituencies or bulk registrations—is an assault on democracy," Thakur asserted, emphasising that the data stemmed directly from ECI records. He framed the protest as a follow-up to earlier signature campaigns and press conferences aimed at alerting citizens from the district to grassroots levels about what he called a "crisis for democratic rights".

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The BJP swiftly dismissed the allegations as "baseless and politically motivated", with state media in charge Karan Nanda labelling Congress leaders as "experts in lying" who would win gold in an Olympic event for falsehoods. Nanda argued that such claims were desperate attempts to tarnish BJP figures, asserting that the public would reject them outright. This exchange underscores deepening partisan divides over electoral integrity amid broader opposition scrutiny of the ECI's neutrality.

The controversy traces back to August 2025, when Rahul Gandhi first alleged systematic fraud in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, citing over 100,000 discrepancies in Karnataka's Mahadevapura constituency alone, including duplicates, invalid addresses, and bulk registrations. Similar claims surfaced in Haryana's assembly elections, where Gandhi pointed to 25 lakh stolen votes. The ECI has vehemently refuted these as "misleading" and "baseless", demanding affidavits from accusers or public apologies, while noting no formal appeals were filed against voter rolls and only limited petitions remain pending in courts. Despite these rebuttals, trust in the poll body has eroded, with surveys showing a sharp rise in public scepticism from 11% to 31% in key states since 2019, fuelling calls for reforms like digital voter list access and Supreme Court-mandated inclusion of the Chief Justice in ECI appointments.

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