Gurgaon: Black balloons floated over Ambedkar Park in Farrukhnagar on Saturday, with “Vote Chor, Gaddi Chhod” written on them as Congress leaders and workers took their campaign against alleged voter deletions to the streets.At the protest in Baharli Basti, organised under the party’s ‘Vote Bachao, Desh Bachao’ campaign, Congress leaders questioned the transparency of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and demanded that complaints about missing names be addressed. Sanjay Dutt, Congress’ AICC in-charge for Haryana, alleged that 13-14 crore votes had been deleted across the country. “The voters perceived to be opposed to the BJP were being targeted,” alleged Dutt. The figures and allegations could not be independently verified from the information available.Haryana Congress president Rao Narendra Singh said electoral democracy required more than holding elections, arguing that every eligible citizen must be able to vote without obstruction. He also linked the issue to inflation, unemployment and what he described as attempts to weaken constitutional institutions.Singh said the difficulties faced by people in correcting errors in electoral rolls raised questions about whether ordinary voters, particularly those with fewer resources, could get their grievances resolved. He called for a transparent, accessible and time-bound mechanism to address such complaints.Former Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar alleged that lakhs of votes had been “stolen” in the state and urged people to unite to protect their voting rights. He said the right to vote was central to citizens’ participation in democracy.Gurgaon rural Congress president Vardhan Yadav claimed around 1.76 lakh votes had been deleted in the Badshapur assembly constituency during SIR and questioned how such a large number of deletions could have occurred.“If every valid voter’s right had been protected and the election had been fair, Congress would have an MLA in Badshapur today,” Yadav said, alleging that the minister had won through “vote theft” rather than public support. The allegation was not substantiated at the event, and no evidence establishing that the minister benefited from wrongful deletions was presented.The protest’s central demand was that electoral-roll discrepancies be investigated and eligible voters not be denied their franchise. However, the claims of mass deletions and political targeting made by Congress leaders remain allegations and require verification against official electoral data.Haryana’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has significantly reduced the electorate in Gurgaon district, with 4,53,079 voters removed from the rolls between the pre-SIR list and the draft electoral roll. The district’s electorate fell from 15,55,034 to 11,01,955, a decline of around 29%. Among the four assembly constituencies, Badshapur recorded the highest number of deletions at 1,75,878, followed by Gurgaon at 1,78,990, Sohna at 57,908 and Pataudi at 40,303. The draft figures cover voters marked absent, shifted, dead or duplicate during the enumeration exercise; exclusion from the draft list does not by itself establish that a person was ineligible to vote.
