In line with Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s “vote chori” campaign, the Congress has rolled out a “pilot project” to appoint “booth rakshaks”, with the aim to train party workers on the ground to detect and report “irregularities in electoral rolls”.
The party has picked five Lok Sabha constituencies – Jaipur Rural and Alwar in Rajasthan, Janjgir–Champa in Chhattisgarh, Morena in Madhya Pradesh, and Bansgaon in Uttar Pradesh – where its candidates lost by relatively narrow margins in the 2024 elections, for the “pilot project”. Each booth rakshak will be in charge of 10 booths, and has been assigned a team of 10 Booth Level Agents (BLA).
The party has formed a five-member team to oversee the exercise. The team is learnt to have started the groundwork, visiting all five constituencies and holding training workshops for the local leadership at the booth level on reviewing electoral rolls. They have also been gathering data on irregularities in voter lists, which will be submitted to the Congress high command for further scrutiny, said sources.
“The team is training the local leadership on how to catch vote chori; it is going through the electoral rolls of each booth in the constituencies it is visiting,” said an AICC source.
“Local leaders are being trained on the use of Forms 6, 7 and 8 in the electoral process. It is a two-pronged approach – training the local leadership and also keeping an eye on irregularities in voter lists, deletions and additions,” said a source.
“The team is raising awareness on how vote chori is being done, alerting the workers on issues like bulk voters in one address, duplication of names … ineligible voters, how they have to be tracked at the booth level and their names have to be removed. Then, there is the issue of dead people remaining on voters’ lists, and living people being declared dead. It is also raising awareness on the procedure to get voters’ names deleted and added,” said a party source.
“We are appointing these booth rakshaks so that they can track irregularities in electoral rolls and bring it to the party’s notice. We are also training the local leadership on the different ways in which vote chori has been done,” Anil Chopra, Congress candidate from Jaipur Rural in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, told The Indian Express.
Chopra, who lost to BJP’s Rao Rajendra Singh by 1,615 votes, said Jaipur Rural has 380 booths, and the party has appointed 38 “booth rakshaks” drawn from the local leadership.
The party lost Alwar by 48,282 votes, Janjgir–Champa by 60,000 votes, Morena by 52,530 votes and Bansgaon by 3,150 votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The “vote chori” campaign has been a key plank of the Congress, with Rahul Gandhi stepping up the pressure on the Election Commission (EC) at a press conference last week, where he accused Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar of protecting “vote thieves” who have “destroyed Indian democracy”. He cited data from two Assembly constituencies — one in Karnataka and another in Maharashtra — to allege irregularities in electoral rolls and asked the EC to provide, within a week, information about alleged voter deletions sought by the Karnataka CID.
“We are hopeful that as Rahul Gandhi keeps showing evidence of vote chori, people will become aware and start asking questions; it can even become a mass movement. This pilot project has been started with an intent to raise awareness across the country,” said a party leader.
