‘We Will Come Looking for You,’ Rahul Gandhi Tells ECI

Congress Party Leader Escalates Charges Against the Election Commission

December 11, 2025

Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, accused India’s top election officials of collaborating in “vote theft” and warned that a future government would change the law to hold them accountable. Speaking in Parliament, he said, “We will change the law retrospectively, and we will come looking for you.”

Gandhi alleged that the Election Commission of India (ECI) had been “captured” and no longer responded to complaints raised by the opposition, as reported by The Indian Express.

He questioned why the Chief Justice of India (CJI) was removed from the selection panel that appoints election commissioners, and why the current law shields officials from prosecution for actions taken while in office, citing a 2023 amendment as unprecedented in Indian history, as reported by the Indian Express.

In December 2023, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)–led government passed a law in Parliament that removed the CJI from the committee selecting election commissioners, replacing the earlier court-mandated panel with one comprising the prime minister, a Union Cabinet minister and the leader of the opposition. The same law granted election commissioners immunity from prosecution for actions taken while in office, shielding them from civil or criminal proceedings and limiting their removal to a process requiring parliamentary impeachment.

Calling vote theft the “biggest anti-national act,” Gandhi said the destruction of votes undermined the integrity of the country. He described electoral reform as “very simple,” and proposed four measures to restore confidence in elections: (1) providing parties with complete voter lists one month before elections, (2) preserving CCTV footage indefinitely, (3) allowing access to electronic voting machine architecture, and (4) repealing legal immunity for election commissioners.

He also attacked the government over the destruction of polling station CCTV footage, referring to a rule change dated May 30, 2025. Under the new rule, the Election Commission is allowed to erase footage 45 days after election results, coinciding with the legal deadline to file petitions challenging the outcome.

Gandhi has accused the BJP of manipulating voter rolls across India, calling it “Vote Chori,” or vote theft. He previously cited Haryana as a key case, claiming the Congress party lost several closely contested seats there due to more than 2.5 million compromised voter entries. These included bulk voters, duplicate entries, invalid addresses and fake photographs, according to a detailed report published on Gandhi’s website.

In Haryana’s Rai constituency, a stock photograph of a Brazilian model was reportedly used for 22 voter entries under different names. In Mulana, one woman’s photo appeared 223 times, while in Tigaon, another woman’s image was used 100 times. Gandhi said the problem extended across multiple states, including Karnataka and Maharashtra.

In Bangalore Central’s Mahadevapura segment, 68 voters were registered at a brewery, and more than 80 others at a single room, according to the report. Over 40,000 entries listed “House No. 0” as the address, which Gandhi said made verification impossible. The explanation that these were homeless voters was contradicted by ground checks that showed the people had actual homes.

The Congress party accused the ECI of failing to use its own duplicate-detection tools and refusing to release machine-readable rolls to allow independent verification. It also claimed mass deletions of voters between elections, targeting opposition supporters. In Haryana, 350,000 (3.5 lakh) voters were reportedly deleted between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections.

One example from Karnataka involved 6,018 voter deletion applications filed using fake online logins and out-of-state mobile numbers.

In Rajura, Maharashtra, thousands of fake additions were made using fabricated names and addresses. In Mahadevapura, Form 6, intended for new voters aged 18 to 21, was misused to register people over 70, including one woman who voted twice after filling the form twice in two months.

Gandhi said the BJP had no intention of implementing reforms because it benefited from the irregularities.

He has said “Vote Chori” is the first step in “Sarkar Chori,” or the theft of an entire government mandate. He said when the vote is stolen, the resulting administration has no obligation to provide jobs, education or justice. He argued that “Vote Chori” was a structured, nationwide fraud operation.

During his speech, Gandhi said that institutions like universities, investigative agencies and the bureaucracy were being staffed with officials loyal to the ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He claimed this was part of a long-running plan to dismantle the egalitarian vision of Mahatma Gandhi and asserted that the RSS’s project to capture institutions began after the assassination of the Father of the Nation.

His remarks prompted protests from members of the Treasury benches (the seats occupied by members of the ruling party or ruling coalition in the Lok Sabha). Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju objected that Gandhi was straying from the topic. Speaker Om Birla urged members to maintain decorum and avoid challenging the authority of the Chair.

Gandhi responded that the subject at hand was votes and the stealing of votes. He said the current state of universities and public agencies could be traced to political interference by the ruling party and its ideological affiliates.

You have just read a News Briefing by Newsreel Asia, written to cut through the noise and present a single story for the day that matters to you. Certain briefings, based on media reports, seek to keep readers informed about events across India, others offer a perspective rooted in humanitarian concerns and some provide our own exclusive reporting. We encourage you to read the News Briefing each day. Our objective is to help you become not just an informed citizen, but an engaged and responsible one.