The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) accused the Congress of vote rigging in the Jubilee Hills Assembly Constituency, terming the suspected malpractice as 'vote chori'. BRS Working President KT Rama Rao (KTR), with top party leaders, made a comprehensive representation to the Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana, complaining of duplicate entries, bogus voters, and various malpractices in the voter list of the constituency.
Speaking to the media after filing the complaint, KTR alleged that the Congress was "misusing official machinery and government resources" to influence the by-election result. He claimed that Ministers from across Telangana had descended on Jubilee Hills, employing "persuasion, division, and coercion," alongside power and money, to swing the outcome.
KTR further highlighted what he called the "hypocrisy" of the Congress government: "When their own MLAs are writing to the World Bank and newspapers saying the government has no funds, how are they suddenly pouring in massive funds in Jubilee Hills? This is deceit before the election," he asserted.
The BRS claims to have identified nearly 20,000 duplicate and fraudulent votes in Jubilee Hills, with an estimated 50 fake votes in each of the 400 polling booths. They also, reportedly, presented evidence. The party alleged that the Congress colluded with lower-level officials to facilitate the inclusion of these fake names.
"This is Rahul Gandhi’s national-level electoral theft reflected locally in Jubilee Hills," KTR claimed, adding that even after 12,000 invalid votes were deleted, nearly 7,000 new fraudulent votes were added, amounting to the manipulation of 19,000 votes in total.
KTR said that the BRS has "No trust in the Election Commission because it is working together with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress. Even if the elections are delayed by 10 days, remove the fake votes and conduct fair elections."
Responding to the allegations, Congress Minister Ponnam Prabhakar dismissed them as "diversion politics." He argued: “There was no development under BRS. People are turning towards the Congress, and that’s why KTR is resorting to diversion tactics. I challenge KTR to a debate on this issue.”
The "vote chori" controversy has rapidly escalated into a major political flashpoint ahead of the Jubilee Hills by-election, with both parties fiercely trading charges over bogus votes and the alleged misuse of power.
Also read: KTR calls Congress govt in Telangana a circus
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