More than 300 MPs from 25 Opposition parties are set to march from Parliament to the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters in the capital on Monday to protest alleged “vote chori” (vote theft) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.
The march, scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. from Makar Dwar in Parliament, will see participation from parties including Congress, Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress, DMK, Aam Aadmi Party, Left parties, RJD, NCP (SP), Shiv Sena (UBT) and the National Conference.
Delhi Police are unlikely to allow the protest to proceed to the EC office, located less than two kilometres away. A senior officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told that no formal request for police permission had been submitted.
According to a Congress communique, “MPs of Opposition parties (LS & RS) to march from Makar Dwar in Parliament to Nirvachan Sadan (Election Commission), New Delhi via Transport Bhawan at 11:30 a.m., tomorrow, August 11, 2025.”
The rally, called by the INDIA bloc, will not be held under the alliance’s banner to accommodate the Aam Aadmi Party, which withdrew from the alliance last month but has 12 MPs in Parliament.
“This is a programme of the Opposition and we expect AAP to join it,” Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose said. A senior Opposition leader noted that the TMC played a key role in persuading AAP to take part in the march from Parliament to the EC office on Ashoka Road.
Protesters are expected to carry posters and banners in English, Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Marathi to oppose the Bihar SIR exercise and highlight alleged “vote theft.”
On Sunday, the Congress launched a web portal inviting citizens to register their support and demand accountability from the EC, urging the release of digital voter rolls.
“Vote Chori is an attack on the foundational idea of ‘one man, one vote’. A clean voter roll is imperative for free and fair elections,” Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi posted on X. “Our demand from the EC is clear — be transparent and release digital voter rolls so that people and parties can audit them. The fight is to protect the democracy.”
Rahul Gandhi’s voter fraud allegation
Last week, Gandhi alleged that over 100,000 votes were “stolen” through five types of manipulation in the Mahadevapura assembly segment in Karnataka’s Bangalore Central constituency during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
“We started examining the details and discovered that approximately 1,00,250 votes were stolen in the Mahadevapura assembly,” Gandhi claimed while presenting the findings at a press conference.
The Election Commission, in multiple social media posts, dismissed Gandhi’s allegations as “incorrect” and has asked him to submit the data of alleged dubious voters under oath.
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