Flagging the exclusion of 2.06 crore names in Maharashtra’s draft electoral rolls after the special intensive revision (SIR), the Congress on Tuesday (September 1, 2026) said votes were being added and deleted to ensure that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wins elections.

The deletions in Maharashtra, where draft rolls were published on Monday (August 31), are the largest in absolute numbers for any State in the ongoing Phase 3 of the SIR.

Following the 2024 Maharashtra elections, the Congress had formally submitted representations to the Election Commission alleging large-scale voter roll manipulation, including unusual voter spikes in several constituencies. It had alleged that forged documentation, such as fake Aadhaar cards with mismatched names and photos, were used to add fictitious voters without physical verification of addresses.

On Tuesday (September 1, 2026), Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said “the BJP and the ‘vote theft commission’ keep changing their tactics, and they will continue to do so; the goal remains just one: BJP’s victory at any cost, and the end of India’s democracy”.

In a post on X, he said: “Maharashtra 2024 - Suddenly, 3.9 million new voters were added between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. I said it then, and I say it today: This was vote theft.”

“And now in Maharashtra, 2.07 crore voters have been removed from the draft list — that’s every fifth voter. Lok Sabha 2024: 9.29 crore, Vidhan Sabha 2024: 9.7 crore, SIR 2026: 7.78 crore. Which list was correct,” Mr. Gandhi asked.

“For a government built on vote theft, the people are not important—that’s why this BJP neither listens to the people nor obeys their command,” he added.

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said votes are added when it suits the BJP. “Where it doesn’t, votes are split to perpetrate vote theft,” he said.

“The BJP’s conspiracy to hollow out Indian democracy by stealing votes is coming out into the open. Instead of acting as the guardian of fair elections, the Election Commission is functioning like the “Save BJP’s Chair Commission,” he wrote on X.

Both leaders said that in West Bengal, 91% of the voter names struck off in the SIR had to be reinstated after appeals. “That means 9 out of every 10 names were wrongly deleted, and added back only after the election. I said it then, and I say it today: This was vote theft”, Mr. Gandhi said.

Mr. Kharge said that the “same game” was being repeated in Delhi. “Voters were increased before the Assembly elections, then names of 4.756 million voters vanished from the draft list, and preparations are underway to issue notices to 3.3 million other voters,” he said.

He said that in Telangana and Karnataka, Congress workers faced similar manipulations every day. “The country is now uniting against vote theft. The nation has understood the BJP’s conspiracy, the thief has been caught. Punishment will surely be meted out for holding democracy captive,” he added.

The Election Commission, meanwhile, has shared figures showing that 3,35,910 booth-level agents appointed by different recognised political parties were engaged in preparing the draft electoral roll for Maharashtra, and another 33,226 for Delhi.