"Photo Was Mine But Name Was Someone Else's": Haryana Voter On Fraud Row

The controversy over Rahul Gandhi's 'H-bomb' – renewed allegations of centralised voter fraud involving the Election Commission and the ruling BJP – rolled on Friday with NDTV talking to another voter whose photographs appeared against multiple voter IDs, 223 in this case.

The voter in this case is 75-year-old Charanjit Kaur, who lives in Dhakola village in Haryana's Ambala district. Kaur told NDTV she voted – in last year's Assembly election – just once.

She also said everyone told her photo had been displayed on several voter ID cards. "When I went to cast my vote, the photo (on the list) was mine but it was against someone else's name," Kaur said.

"I told my son about it," she told NDTV.

Her son, Tejinder Singh, who contested the village sarpanch election, said he filed a complaint with officials, stating his mother's photo had been placed in multiple lists but with incorrect names and addresses. It seemed to be a printing mistake, he said, but no action was taken.

Singh also blamed incorrect voting lists for his electoral defeat.

NDTV earlier spoke to other voters in Haryana and uncovered striking anomalies in rolls.

In Malikpur village in Sonipat district, for example, several voters - including four members of one family - mysteriously disappeared from the list. One voter, Anjali Tyagi, said she voted in the April-May federal election last year, but could not vote in the state poll five months later.

This round of controversy over voter lists and possible large-scale voter fraud erupted after another Wednesday's presentation by Rahul Gandhi, which included flagging an instance where a stock photograph of a Brazilian woman was pasted against 22 'voter IDs' used in Haryana.

Gandhi alleged massive voter fraud - 25 lakh votes, by his estimate - in that election, which the Congress appeared set to win before a last-gasp rally by the BJP clinched victory. In that election the Congress got around 83,000 votes less than the BJP.

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"This means one in eight voters in Haryana are fake... 12.5 per cent," he said.

Gandhi then offered the 'Brazilian woman' voter as an example.

A photo of Larissa Nery, a hairdresser from that country, appeared against a voter ID issued to a woman called Munesh, living in Haryana's Sonipat district. Nery's photo also appeared against nearly two dozen other voter IDs under different names, like 'Sweety' and 'Seema'.

Larissa Nery (L) the Brazilian woman whose photo was unwittingly used in Indian voter lists.

The Congress leader then repeated his allegations of voter fraud, stating, "This is a centralised operation. Somebody fed this lady into the list at a centralised level, not at the booth level."

Munesh also spoke to NDTV, saying she too voted only once. "The card I have has my photo... the one Rahul Gandhi showed does not. I cast my vote. I don't know whose photo is (on the fake card)."

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In response, the BJP's Kiren Rijiju criticised Gandhi for raising "fake issues" hours before the start of voting in Bihar. "There's nothing left in Bihar, so he's shifting the narrative to Haryana."

Election Commission sources, meanwhile pointed out the Congress had not filed any relevant appeal or objection during the review of the Haryana election result. Sources also dismissed the allegations as baseless and questioned the Congress' own vigilance during the electoral process.

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A video of Nery has now gone viral, in which she declares, "Guys, they are using an old photo of mine. It's an old photo, okay? I was like 18 or 20 years old. I don't know if it's an election or something about voting... And in India. Ah! They're portraying me as Indian to scam people, guys. What madness!"

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