Was Sonia Gandhi’s name added to voter list before she became Indian citizen? BJP exposes ‘blatant electoral malpractice’
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Was Sonia Gandhi’s name added to voter list before she became Indian citizen? BJP exposes ‘blatant electoral malpractice’")
Sonia Gandhi on voter list before citizenship, claims BJP. Photograph: (ANI)
BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya shared an extract from the electoral rolls of 1980, showing Gandhi’s name in the voter list three years before she became an Indian citizen.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday (Aug 13) hit back against the Opposition’s protest over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar, alleging former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had been illegally added to the voter list in the 1980s before she was an Indian citizen. In a lengthy post on X, BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya shared a photocopy of an extract from the electoral rolls of 1980, saying that Gandhi’s name appeared in the voter list three years earlier than she officially became an Indian citizen.
This comes amid the controversy surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar. Earlier on Thursday (Aug 7), Rahul Gandhi accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of resorting to ‘stealing votes’.
Malviya accused Gandhi, who was born as Sonia Maino in Italy in 1946, of “violating” the electoral law, which requires a person to be an Indian citizen to be registered as a voter.
“Her name first appeared on the rolls in 1980 — three years before she became an Indian citizen and while she still held Italian citizenship. At the time, the Gandhi family lived at 1, Safdarjung Road, the official residence of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi,” the BJP minister wrote.
He further said, “Until then, the voters registered at that address were Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi, and Maneka Gandhi. In 1980, the electoral rolls of the New Delhi parliamentary constituency were revised with January 1, 1980, as the qualifying date. During this revision, Sonia Gandhi’s name was added, appearing at serial number 388 in polling station 145.”
Malviya added that following an outcry in 1982, her name was deleted from the list. However, her name reappeared on the voter list in 1983. Her reinstatement also raised serious questions. “In the fresh revision of the electoral rolls that year, Sonia Gandhi was listed at serial number 236 in polling station 140. The qualifying date for registration was January 1, 1983 — yet she was granted Indian citizenship only on April 30, 1983,” he said.
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He highlighted that Gandhi’s name entered the electoral twice without meeting the basic citizenship requirement. First, her name was added in 1980, when she was an Italian citizen, and then again she was added in the 1983 voter list, months before she legally became a citizen of India.
“If this isn’t blatant electoral malpractice, what is?” Malviya questioned.
Meanwhile, former Union Minister Anurag Thakur slammed Rahul Gandhi over his allegations of voter fraud in Maharashtra and Karnataka last year, accusing the Congress MP of “lying” and presenting incorrect numbers.
