New Delhi: In a sharp political twist, a woman whose video clip was used by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to allege “vote-chori” in his today’s press conference on Haryana assembly elections, denied the accusation, prompting an aggressive counter-attack from the BJP.
BJP national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari posted a video on Wednesday accusing Rahul Gandhi of “spreading fake news” and “misleading the country.”
“The lady from Haryana shown in Rahul Gandhi’s presentation has denied ‘vote-chori’. Rahul Gandhi lied and used her video wrongly,” Bhandari claimed, calling the Congress leader “anti-democracy” on social media.
Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi had addressed a press conference where he launched a scathing attack on the BJP and the Election Commission of India, alleging widespread electoral malpractice. As part of his presentation, Gandhi played a video of a woman identifying herself as Anjali Tyagi from Malikpur village in the Rai Assembly constituency.
In that clip, she stated that while she voted in the Lok Sabha elections, she found her name missing when she went to vote in the Assembly polls, forcing her to reapply for her voter card, which she later received in June.
However, in the video shared by the BJP, the same woman is seen contradicting the Congress narrative. “I don’t feel BJP has done vote-chori,” she says.
“My vote was cut by mistake. There are 140 crore people… vote chori nahi hui, vote cut gaya hoga (The vote was not stolen, the vote might have been cancelled.”
Responding to Congress’s criticism of the ECI, she adds that she does not believe any deliberate wrongdoing took place.
The development has added another layer to the post-election political narrative in Haryana, where the Congress had accused the ruling BJP of manipulating voter rolls and undermining democratic processes.
The BJP, meanwhile, is turning this rebuttal into a counter-charge — framing the incident as evidence of what it calls the Opposition’s attempt to weaponise misinformation.
(IANS)
