VOTE CHORI: Cong to submit 5 cr signatures to Prez tomorrow

New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday renewed its allegations of electoral manipulation, terming it “vote chori,” and announced plans to submit a memorandum with over 5 crore signatures to President Droupadi Murmu on Saturday, seeking urgent corrective action.

AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal said the massive signature drive reflects widespread public anger and concern over “systematic attacks on democracy” through practices such as duplicate voting, fake entries, and fraudulent addresses in electoral rolls.

Under the party’s “Vote Chor Gaddi Chod” campaign, citizens have made five key demands from the Election Commission of India (ECI):

• Prosecute officials and agents involved in voter suppression.

• Publish a machine-readable voter list with photographs for public scrutiny.

• Release all voter addition and deletion lists with photos before each election.

• Set up a grievance redressal mechanism for wrongful deletions.

• Announce a clear cut-off date for voter list changes to prevent last-minute manipulations.

Venugopal said the Congress has consistently raised concerns over large-scale electoral fraud undermining democratic processes, with Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi repeatedly highlighting alleged “vote chori” by the BJP in collusion with the ECI.