• Pawan Khera

The Vote-Chor BJP regime has now brazenly and systematically subverted the mandate of the people of Assam and West Bengal. Through a deeply entrenched, remote-controlled electoral machinery, the BJP has effectively hijacked the institutions that are meant to protect free and fair elections. What remains today is not democracy in practice, but a hollowed-out shell, captured, compromised, and controlled.

In West Bengal, the BJP stands accused of orchestrating the large-scale theft of mandate, manipulating electoral rolls and engineering outcomes across more than 100 seats. It is institutionalised electoral predation. The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA Alliance) stands unequivocally with Mamata Banerjee in this decisive moment of democratic crisis. Her resolve to strengthen the INDIA bloc reflects a wider national imperative, the defence of constitutional democracy against systematic sabotage. The INDIA Alliance is united in recognising that what has transpired in West Bengal is not an election outcome, but a manufactured verdict imposed through manipulation.

During the Special Intensive Revision in West Bengal, a staggering 91 lakh voters were deleted from the rolls, while 27 lakh citizens were denied even the basic procedural right to be heard before any tribunal. In at least 50 constituencies, the number of deleted voters exceeded the winning margin itself, rendering the declared results structurally pre-decided. It is premeditated electoral engineering. Assam and West Bengal are no longer witnessing flawed elections; they are witnessing a captured democratic process.

This is not an isolated aberration. It is a well-established, repeatable BJP playbook, deployed in Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bihar, and most brazenly during Lok Sabha 2024. Each instance reinforces a disturbing pattern: systematic voter manipulation, institutional capture, and electoral distortion as a governing strategy.

1. In Karnataka’s Aland constituency alone, 6,018 forged applications were filed to illegally delete voter names, of which only 24 were genuine and 5,994 were fraudulent. Reports indicate that ` 80 per fake application was paid to a data centre operator.
2. Across India, the evidence is no longer anecdotal. Statistically and structurally, roughly every sixth BJP Member of Parliament out of 240 is the product of compromised electoral processes. It is engineered representation sustained through manipulation.

3. In Haryana, the extent of electoral contamination is staggering. Photographs of a Brazilian model were used 22 times across multiple booths to cast fraudulent votes. A single woman’s photograph was recorded 223 times across booths. Over 1,24,177 blurred, duplicated, or fabricated images were identified. Haryana is a systematically stolen mandate, a captured government sustained through electoral fraud.

4. In Maharashtra, within just five months between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, 40 lakh new voters were inserted into the rolls, surpassing the 32 lakh added over the entire five-year period from 2019 to 2024. Turnout figures shifted mysteriously after polling concluded, rising from 58% to 65.02% and later to 66.05%. These are not inconsistencies; they are symptoms of a deeply compromised electoral architecture.

After the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it is evident that the BJP realises that the people are prepared to throw it out through the ballot. In response, it has abandoned the democratic principle of consent and embraced a darker strategy: vote theft, institutional capture, and systemic electoral engineering as tools of political survival. It has weaponised the so-called Systematic Intensive Revision (SIR) as a tool to snatch away the fundamental Right to Vote. Under SIR, electoral rolls have been selectively manipulated in election-bound states. The Election Commission of India has effectively been reduced to a mechanism executing this design. Across 12 states, 7.2 crore voters have been deleted, amounting to 10.2% of India’s entire voter base being wiped out. The BJP government is now hell-bent on finishing the Opposition using every possible instrument, central agencies, fake and fabricated cases, SIR-based voter deletions, and systemic institutional pressure. The objective is clear: to cripple Opposition parties both in Parliament and in State Assemblies and to systematically dismantle political competition. It is organised political targeting aimed at eliminating democratic opposition itself.

What is unfolding is no longer merely vote chori. It is an institutional chori, a wholesale hijacking of democratic infrastructure. Institutions meant to function as neutral guardians of democracy have been reduced to remote-controlled extensions of political power. The referee has ceased to be neutral and has become an active participant in the game.

Even before the BJP has formally taken charge in West Bengal, unrest has already begun. BJP elements are burning Opposition party offices, physically assaulting candidates and workers, forcing shops to shut down, and using loud DJ systems to play obscene songs as a form of intimidation. There are also serious reports of threats being issued to men and women, including threats of sexual violence, along with widespread intimidation and beatings.

At the heart of this crisis lies one undeniable truth: the BJP fears only one thing above all, free and fair elections. Because in a genuinely level electoral contest, stripped of manipulation and institutional bias, the BJP would struggle to even cross 140 seats. This is no longer a political disagreement. It is a direct assault on the constitutional foundations of the Republic, and a systematic attempt to replace democratic consent with engineered control.

Based on the statement by Shri Pawan Khera, Chairman, Media & Publicity (Communications Dept), AICC released during the Press Conference on May 6, 2026