Union Home Minister Amit Shah has refuted Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of vote theft in Haryana. Shah clarified that a house listed with a single number housed multiple families and that duplicate voter entries are a result of systemic issues, not manipulation by the BJP or Election Commission. NEW DELHI: Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday offered a point-by-point rebuttal over the allegation of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over vote theft in the Lok Sabha. During the ongoing debate on electoral reforms in the Parliament, Shah took a jibe at the Congress leader’s “nuclear bomb” press conference said that his press conferences are not “Constitutional provisions.””Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi dropped a “nuclear bomb” in a press conference on 5 November 2025. In that ‘nuclear bomb’, he claimed that 501 votes had been cast from a single house in Haryana. The Election Commission has clarified that House Number 265 is no small dwelling, but rather a joint residence for multiple families built on a one-acre ancestral plot,” the home minister said.”However, separate house numbers have not been assigned to each family, so their house number is simply listed as 265. And in one of those families, three generations are living together. This numbering has been in place since the Congress government was elected in Haryana. It is neither a fake house nor fake votes,” he added.Shah also said that it is unfair to blame the people who appear twice in the voter list.”Congress has claimed that some individuals are registered in two different locations on the electoral roll. It is unfair to blame the people who appear twice, as this is often a result of systemic issues. Since 2010, the Returning Officer’s authority to remove duplicate entries has been revoked, which has led to such discrepancies. In fact, there are several leaders whose names are registered in more than one place. These are common mistakes caused by the updated rules,” Shah said.”The SIR is meant to prevent such occurrences, yet we are being accused of ‘Vote Chori’,” he added.This comes days after Rahul Gandhi held two press conferences and claimed that Election Commission and Bharatiya Janata Party are hatching the conspiracy of stealing the mandate.Rahul addressed said that his team has “100 per cent” proof that around 25 lakh voters in Haryana are either duplicate, non-existent or manipulated.”We have the word ‘H’ Files and this is about how an entire state has been stolen. We suspected that this is not happening in individual constituencies, but at the state level and at the national level,” Rahul said.”We got a lot of complaints in Haryana, from our candidates, that something was wrong and not working. Their predictions all went upside down. We had experienced this in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra but we decided to zoom into Haryana and go into details about what had happened there,” he added.The Congress leader shared a breakup for the unaccounted votes and claimed that “vote chori” happened in Haryana assembly elections to the tune of 25 lakhs under 5 categories — Duplicate voters, invalid addresses, bulk voters, and others.He had further claimed that a lady, who turned out to be a Brazilian model, voted 22 times at 10 different booths with different names in the Haryana assembly elections.About the AuthorTOI News DeskThe TOI News Desk comprises a dedicated and tireless team of journalists who operate around the clock to deliver the most current and comprehensive news and updates to the readers of The Times of India worldwide. With an unwavering commitment to excellence in journalism, our team is at the forefront of gathering, verifying, and presenting breaking news, in-depth analysis, and insightful reports on a wide range of topics. 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NEW DELHI: Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday offered a point-by-point rebuttal over the allegation of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over vote theft in the Lok Sabha. During the ongoing debate on electoral reforms in the Parliament, Shah took a jibe at the Congress leader’s “nuclear bomb” press conference said that his press conferences are not “Constitutional provisions.““Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi dropped a “nuclear bomb” in a press conference on 5 November 2025. In that ‘nuclear bomb’, he claimed that 501 votes had been cast from a single house in Haryana. The Election Commission has clarified that House Number 265 is no small dwelling, but rather a joint residence for multiple families built on a one-acre ancestral plot,” the home minister said.“However, separate house numbers have not been assigned to each family, so their house number is simply listed as 265. And in one of those families, three generations are living together. This numbering has been in place since the Congress government was elected in Haryana. It is neither a fake house nor fake votes,” he added.Shah also said that it is unfair to blame the people who appear twice in the voter list.“Congress has claimed that some individuals are registered in two different locations on the electoral roll. It is unfair to blame the people who appear twice, as this is often a result of systemic issues. Since 2010, the Returning Officer’s authority to remove duplicate entries has been revoked, which has led to such discrepancies. In fact, there are several leaders whose names are registered in more than one place. These are common mistakes caused by the updated rules,” Shah said.“The SIR is meant to prevent such occurrences, yet we are being accused of ‘Vote Chori’,” he added.This comes days after Rahul Gandhi held two press conferences and claimed that Election Commission and Bharatiya Janata Party are hatching the conspiracy of stealing the mandate.Rahul addressed said that his team has “100 per cent” proof that around 25 lakh voters in Haryana are either duplicate, non-existent or manipulated.“We have the word ‘H’ Files and this is about how an entire state has been stolen. We suspected that this is not happening in individual constituencies, but at the state level and at the national level,” Rahul said.“We got a lot of complaints in Haryana, from our candidates, that something was wrong and not working. Their predictions all went upside down. We had experienced this in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra but we decided to zoom into Haryana and go into details about what had happened there,” he added.The Congress leader shared a breakup for the unaccounted votes and claimed that “vote chori” happened in Haryana assembly elections to the tune of 25 lakhs under 5 categories — Duplicate voters, invalid addresses, bulk voters, and others.He had further claimed that a lady, who turned out to be a Brazilian model, voted 22 times at 10 different booths with different names in the Haryana assembly elections.
