Brazilian model voted 22 times: Rahul

New Delhi: Dropping his much-awaited "H bomb", Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said: "I am questioning the Election Commission and the democratic process in India, and I am doing this with 100 per cent proof.

"We are sure that a plan was put in motion to convert Congress's landslide victory into a loss."

Gandhi said the Congress lost eight constituencies with very slim margins, including one where it lost by just 32 votes. These margins added up to 22,779. "Congress lost the Haryana election by 22,779 votes, to give you a sense of how close it became," he said.

Citing an example, Gandhi shared 22 entries in the Haryana voter list with a woman's photograph. This is a photograph of a Brazilian model, he said. The photograph can be downloaded for free from a website that deals in stock photos. The Congress leader said this Brazilian woman's photo appears 22 times in the voter list under different names, "Sweety, Seema, Saraswati". "She votes in 10 different booths in Haryana and she has got multiple names. This means this is a centralised operation," he said.

Citing another case of duplication, he pointed to the 100 voter IDs with the same woman's photograph in a single Assembly segment. "This lady gets to vote 100 times in Haryana if she feels like. This is to create space so that anybody can vote, so that BJP people can move, come from other states and vote," Gandhi said. The Congress leader showed another woman's photograph that appears 223 times in the voter list of two polling booths. "This is the reason the Election Commission destroys CCTV footage of booths," he alleged.