Imagine opening the electoral roll of haryana and finding a foreign face — a Brazilian model’s image downloaded from a stock-photo site — registered under dozens of different names like “Seema”, “Sweety”, “Saraswati”, “Vimla”. Now imagine that face turns up again and again in ten different constituencies, used as a bogus voter card to cast real ballots. That’s not a bizarre glitch. According to rahul Gandhi’s explosive allegation, it’s only one strand of a massive spider-web of fraud — 25 lakh fake voters, one in every eight on the rolls, twisted to convert a predicted landslide into a loss. The machinery of democracy itself, he says, was hijacked. Let’s break it down — list by brutal list.
Magnitude of the outrage
rahul gandhi claims 25 lakh fake voters in haryana — about 12.5 % of the total electorate.
Within that, 5.21 lakh duplicates, 19.26 lakh “bulk” voters (entries added en masse) plus tens of thousands of “invalid” registrations.
Example: a woman’s photo used 22 times across different polling booths — the face belongs to a Brazilian model, the names differ, the votes are real.
The Brazilian model on the rolls
Slide shown by Gandhi: the photograph of a Brazilian model appears under names like Seema, Sweety, Saraswati etc, in multiple constituencies.
“What is a Brazilian person doing on a haryana voters list?” he asked.
The allegation: this is not isolated — retrieved stock-photos are used as identity for fake entries en masse.
Mechanics of the alleged rigging
Same house number used by hundreds of “voters” (house no. “0” in some cases) — addresses that don’t exist or serve as ghost registers.
Voters registered in two states, haryana and Uttar Pradesh, same name, same photo, shadow votes.
Exit-polls predicted a win for the opposition; result flipped. gandhi argues this chasm points to fraud, not luck.
Who’s being blamed?
The ruling bharatiya janata party (BJP) is called out — centralised operation alleged.
The election commission of india (EC) is accused of turning a blind eye, of having the power to remove duplicates instantly but not doing so.
The term “vote chori” (vote theft) becomes a rallying cry for the opposition across states.
Why this matters — bigger than Haryana
If one in eight voters is fake in a state, the democratic foundation shakes. The legitimacy of office-holders is questioned.
This exposes how voter rolls, checks and balances can be manipulated if address verification, photo validation and booth-agent oversight fail.
The ripple: if it worked in haryana, what stops replication in other states? gandhi asserts it’s not just haryana — the system is vulnerable nationwide.
What’s next — the demands and the counter-narrative
The opposition demands an independent investigation, full audit of rolls, and action against duplicate voters.
The ec counters that no “claims and objections” were filed by congress agents before the election arresting irregularities.
The bjp calls the allegations a political stunt; but the visuals — the photo in 22 voter-cards — have already ignited public outrage.
🎯 Final Word
This isn’t just about one bogus photo or one bogus voter. It’s about the system that allowed the photo of a Brazilian model to enter indian electoral rolls, multiple times, under different names, in different booths — and apparently face no immediate challenge. It’s about how the architecture of democracy can be bent if verification is weak, oversight absent, and the machinery misused.
If the allegations hold, then every vote in haryana (and beyond) becomes suspect, every victory potentially hollowed out. Democracy doesn’t just require counting ballots — it demands counting real people. Once fake names, duplicate identities and foreign faces slip in, the mandate itself becomes corrupted.
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