Amid Rahul ‘vote chori charge’, what happened to 16 petitions filed by Congress

Among the petitioning Congress leaders are several who lost to BJP candidates. In the Uchana Kalan seat, former MP Brijendra Singh lost to the BJP’s Devender Chatar Bhuj Attri by 32 votes; in Hodal, then Haryana Congress chief Udai Bhan lost to the BJP’s Harinder Singh by 2,595 votes; and in Badkhal, Vijay Pratap Singh lost to the BJP’s Dhanesh Adlakha by 6,181 votes.

In two other seats, Palwal and Faridabad, Congress candidates former minister Karan Dalal and Lakhan Kumar Singla lost to Gaurav Gautam and Vipul Goel by 33,605 and 48,388 votes, respectively. While Gautam is now a minister for revenue, disaster management and civil aviation in the BJP-led state Cabinet, Goel is a minister of state.

The other petitioners include Neeraj Sharma (who contested the Faridabad NIT seat last year), Amit Sihag (Dabwali), Anil Maan (Nalwa), Jai Bhagwan (Rai), Jaiveer Singh Valmiki (Kharkhoda), Manisha Sangwan (Charkhi Dadri), M L Ranga (Bawal), Sachin Kundu (Panipat Rural), and Dharam Pal (Nilokheri).

Broadly, these Congress leaders had alleged tampering of electronic voting machines (EVMs), misuse of state machinery by the ruling BJP. A few had even sought recounts in the seats they had contested. Several others, including Congress leaders who lost from Karnal, Rewari, Panipat City, Kalka and Narnaul, had also filed complaints. The party had lost these constituencies by margins ranging from 610 to 35,672 votes; all but one won by the BJP.

Brijendra Singh had filed an “amended petition” in the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking “recounting of votes”, which was challenged by his BJP rival Attri to no avail. Attri then approached the Supreme Court. In September this year, a division bench comprising Justices M M Sundresh and Satish Chandra passed orders on a special leave petition (SLP) filed by Attri, asking the High Court “not to proceed with Brijendra’s petition” challenging Attri’s election. The apex court also issued a notice to Brijendra Singh seeking his reply on Attri’s plea. The case is scheduled for a hearing in the Supreme Court on January 19, 2026.

In his amended petition, Brijendra Singh had said that 215 postal ballots of the total 1,373 were declared invalid by the Returning Officer (RO); and of the 1,158 postal votes that were counted as valid, Brijendra Singh got 636 votes. The amended petition stated that Brijendra Singh would be satisfied if the issues regarding the “improper rejection” of the 215 postal ballots was addressed, and that he would drop his other claims.

“The matter is now listed in the Supreme Court for January 19, 2026. The opposite party had filed an SLP, on which the Supreme Court had issued me the notice. We are fighting the legal battle”, Brijendra Singh told The Indian Express.

While filing his petition in the High Court last year, then state party chief Bhan had claimed that Congress state in-charge Deepak Babaria had received a message from a “source” about alleged EVM tampering in 14 Assembly seats ahead of counting on October 8. Sharing the WhatsApp message with the media, Bhan said the seats in question were Kalka, Gharaunda, Assandh, Rai, Kharkhauda, Safidon, Uchana Kalan, Badhra, Dadri, Mahendragarh, Hodal, Badkhal, Gohana, and Narwana. All 14 of these seats were won by the BJP last year.

The petition filed by Karan Dalal, who lost from Palwal, is at the arguments stage in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Speaking to The Indian Express on Wednesday, Udai Bhan said, “Sixteen of us filed complaints with the EC and the Punjab and Haryana High Court. While the EC has not responded to our complaints even after a year has passed, the petitions filed in the High Court are also in the initial stages. In my case, the next date of hearing is in January next year.”

“We even sought recounting/checking of votes in five booths, and deposited around Rs 3.36 lakh to the EC but have yet not received any satisfactory response,” Bhan added, referring to the deposit, as mandated by a Supreme Court ruling, required to request rechecking of EVMs. Karan Dalal in Palwal and Sarv Mitter Kamboj in Rania had also submitted deposits for EVM rechecking.

Meanwhile, a senior All India Congress Committee (AICC) leader told The Indian Express, “The election petitions filed by Haryana Congress leaders were broadly alleging EVM tampering, recounting of votes etc, but the points that Rahul Gandhi raised on Wednesday are forensic details of the manner in which the election was stolen. Frankly, the Haryana Congress leaders did not even have a whiff of the scale at which this entire manipulation by the BJP was done,”

“While we are saying that had we got approximately 22,000 more votes; the result of the (October 2024) election would have been entirely different. But, at the same time, the BJP may also say that if they had got 12,000 votes more; they would have got eight more seats in Haryana”, another AICC leader told The Indian Express.

The BJP had won 48 of 90 Assembly seats in Haryana in last year’s state elections, and created history by forming a government for the third consecutive time. The Congress finished second with 37 seats.