Congress on Saturday, 16 August, stepped up its campaign against alleged “vote theft,” releasing a new video titled “Laapata Vote” — an allusion to Bollywood movies — to underscore its claim.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, in a video posted on X, said: “‘Chori chori, chupke chupke’ no more, the public has woken up.” The Congress, sharing the same clip on its official account, asserted that the “theft of your vote is theft of rights”.
“Let’s raise our voice against vote theft together and save our rights,” the party said.
In the video, a man is shown pleading inside a police station that his “vote has been stolen.” He further tells officials that “lakhs of votes are being stolen,” prompting the police personnel to wonder aloud if their own votes have also been “stolen.”
The minute-long video is titled ‘laapata vote’ with ‘ladies’ cut out from between, a reference to the Kiran Rao-directed movie ‘Laapata Ladies’.
The Congress had earlier released a video on Wednesday as well, depicting how fake votes were being cast. Rahul Gandhi, sharing that minute-long clip, had said: “Aapke vote ki chori aapke adhikar ki chori, aapki pehchaan ki chori hai (Theft of your vote is theft of your rights, theft of your identity).”
The earlier video released by the Congress on Wednesday depicted a family entering a polling booth, only to be told that their votes had already been cast. It ends with two people casting fake votes and flashing a thumbs-up to the polling officer, who sits at a desk marked with a plate reading “election chori aayog.”
The Congress has claimed that “vote chori” was a “do-or-die” issue for it, and announced a roadmap to take its allegations to the people through various activities.
The Opposition party has also launched a web portal for people to register and demand accountability from the poll panel against what it called “vote chori”, and express support for the demand for digital voter rolls.
