Ahmedabad, October 27, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J.P. Nadda on Tuesday accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of failing to formally pursue his allegations of electoral irregularities in Karnataka, while defending the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Addressing the BJP’s ‘Save Democracy, Remove Anarchy’ rally in Ahmedabad, Nadda said Gandhi had alleged that around one lakh votes were invalid in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment but had neither filed a formal complaint with the Election Commission nor submitted an affidavit to support his claims.
“If the Election Commission asked him to submit an affidavit and file a complaint so that it could identify and investigate the matter, why has he not approached the Commission? Can a thousand people gathered at Connaught Place mortgage the country?” Nadda asked, criticising the Congress for challenging the poll body without following the prescribed process.
Defending the SIR exercise amid Opposition concerns over voter deletions, Nadda said around 10.24 lakh Booth Level Officers conducted door-to-door verification, while approximately 12.62 lakh Booth Level Agents, including representatives of Opposition parties, monitored the process across a voter base of nearly 95 crore.
He rejected the Opposition’s claim that around 13 crore votes had been deleted, saying the figure included entries flagged for verification because voters were absent from their registered addresses, had shifted, were deceased or appeared more than once.
Nadda cited figures of approximately three crore entries involving voters who could not be found at their registered addresses, 6.3 crore relating to people who had shifted, one crore duplicate entries and 2.8 crore deceased voters.
He also argued that electoral roll revision was not new, claiming it had been conducted 12 times, including 10 times under Congress governments and twice under BJP governments.
Citing the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Nadda described the Election Commission’s arrangements for a religious figure living deep inside Gujarat’s Gir forest as an example of efforts to facilitate voting.
He also referred to Bihar, claiming the electorate fell from around 7.89 crore to 7.42 crore following revision, while voter turnout reached 66 per cent and the NDA won 202 of the state’s 243 Assembly seats.
Nadda further alleged that electoral rolls required scrutiny for possible entries of ineligible voters, including illegal migrants, and accused the Congress of questioning electronic voting machines when it lost elections.
Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi and other BJP leaders attended the rally.
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