The Election Commission on Friday slammed Rahul Gandhi over his allegations regarding voter fraud in collusion with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), calling them 'baseless' and said the Congress leader must apologise to the nation.

The panel said the Congress had "tried to mislead the Supreme Court" in 2018, referring to a petition by ex-Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath over mistakes in the state roll.

The Congress had then sought access to the vot`1q2 2er list, claiming that 36 voters may have been registered twice, an error the EC said had been rectified - but the court turned them down.

"Now, in 2025, they (the Congress), being aware that the same trick cannot be played in the court, tried to mislead the people by claiming irregularities in the electoral rolls... that same names are occurring at different places," the Election Commission said in a post on X.

The poll panel cited one example - a voter by the name of Aditya Srivastava, who was registered in three different states. "In fact, the name... was rectified months ago," the EC said.

The Election Commission also hit back at the Congress and Gandhi's repeated demands for a searchable version of the voter list, i.e., in a format that will allow for scanning of names and addresses to highlight possible duplications or other errors.

"The Kamal Nath judgement gives a settled position with respect to a machine-readable document and raising the same issues repeatedly shows Mr Gandhi has no respect for the Supreme Court."

In 2018, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the EC is bound to publish draft voter lists in a .pdf file, but also noted the law does not require the file to be in a searchable, or machine-readable, format.

Rahul Gandhi alleges voter fraud

Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged large-scale voter fraud in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura Assembly segment during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, accusing the Election Commission of aiding the BJP in “stealing” the election, media reports said.

Speaking at a press conference, Gandhi said a Congress-led internal investigation revealed that over one lakh votes in Mahadevapura were “stolen” through methods like duplicate entries, fake addresses, and bulk voters listed at a single location.

He claimed this manipulation helped the BJP secure a narrow win in the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha seat.

“Our internal polling predicted 16 seats in Karnataka; we got nine. We looked closely at seven unexpected losses and zeroed in on Mahadevapura. This Assembly segment alone swung the outcome,” Gandhi said.

Alleged voter fraud mechanisms

A presentation shared by Gandhi listed six types of alleged irregularities:

Voters appearing multiple times in the same or different rolls
Entries with invalid or missing addresses
Multiple voters listed at one address
Poor-quality or unreadable voter ID photos
Misuse of Form 6 (meant for first-time voters)
Duplicate voter entries across states

Gandhi alleged that while the Congress alliance swept most Assembly segments in Bangalore Central, Mahadevapura stood out as an outlier.
“We found 1,00,250 fake or invalid votes. When we went to verify the addresses, either they didn’t exist, or only one family lived there.”

He also claimed the Election Commission’s "choreographed" Assembly poll schedules added to the suspicion, especially in Maharashtra, where voter additions surged.

“One crore new voters cast their votes in just five months. Our booth agents reported no unusual turnout, yet the EC said there was brisk voting,” he said.