In a bold escalation of his party’s ongoing standoff with the Election Commission of India (ECI), Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has taken his allegations of voter fraud to a new level — by publicly naming and standing beside citizens who claim they were disenfranchised during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The move is part of a larger strategy by the INDIA bloc, a coalition of opposition parties, which is now actively considering launching an impeachment motion against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.

Rahul Gandhi’s latest campaign step — revealing what he called the “faces of vote chori” — came during the launch of the ‘Vote Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar’s Sasaram. With folded hands and a raised voice, Gandhi introduced voters whose names had allegedly been removed from electoral rolls during the Special Summary Revision. “They are not statistics. They are living proof. The vote was stolen from them, and with it, their democratic voice,” he declared.

The Congress party has backed these claims with data from Mahadevapura constituency in Bengaluru, where they say they uncovered over 1,00,000 instances of voter list manipulation. According to the party’s audit, these irregularities included over 11,000 duplicate voters, 40,000 fake addresses, 10,000 cases of crowding at a single address, and thousands of entries with mismatched or distorted photos.

The accusations have rocked the ECI, which has so far dismissed the claims and demanded formal evidence. In response, CEC Gyanesh Kumar issued a public ultimatum: Gandhi must submit an affidavit proving his allegations within seven days or issue a public apology. Failure to do so, the Commission said, would result in Gandhi’s claims being deemed “baseless” and “an attack on constitutional institutions.”

However, the INDIA bloc isn’t backing down. Top leaders from the Congress, RJD, Left parties, and others met in Delhi to discuss filing a formal impeachment motion under Article 324(5) of the Constitution. This article allows for the removal of the CEC through a process that mirrors the impeachment of Supreme Court judges — requiring a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Parliament. Given the current BJP majority, the motion is unlikely to succeed, but opposition leaders say it’s more about political accountability than legislative arithmetic.

“We know the numbers,” said Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi, “but this is a moral fight. The Election Commission has lost the trust of the people. We are exposing that truth, and the impeachment notice is part of that process.”

The move has further polarized an already charged political atmosphere. BJP leaders have ridiculed Gandhi’s campaign, accusing him of “undermining public trust” and “weaponizing baseless data.” Union Minister Anurag Thakur called the move a “drama” aimed at deflecting attention from Congress’s electoral setbacks.

But Gandhi has doubled down. “Give us some time,” he said at a rally, “and we will expose this theft in every constituency — in every Assembly, every Lok Sabha seat.”

Legal experts are divided on the implications. Former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi said the Commission “must address these allegations head-on” while maintaining transparency. However, others note that unless the affidavit is filed and proven in court or Parliament, Gandhi’s claims will remain political rather than judicial in nature.

Beyond the legalities, the issue strikes at the heart of voter confidence. Civil society groups, including the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), have called for a third-party audit of the electoral rolls in contentious constituencies, warning that unchecked mistrust could erode the foundations of India’s democracy.

Meanwhile, public interest in the controversy is growing. Videos of elderly voters in Bihar speaking about their names being removed — despite voting in earlier elections — have gone viral on social media, fueling public debate. One such voter, Sukhdev Paswan, 67, said, “I have voted all my life. Now my name is gone. No one asked me anything.”

As the seven-day deadline for Gandhi to respond to the ECI approaches, political analysts say the Congress may use the opportunity to further showcase its claims and prolong the confrontation. Whether this pressure will force the Commission to respond more transparently remains to be seen.

What’s clear, however, is that the INDIA bloc has succeeded in placing electoral integrity back into the national spotlight — and in forcing the Election Commission, long seen as neutral, into the center of a heated political storm.