Marri Shashidhar Reddy Slams Congress for False ‘Vote Theft’ Narrative; Calls It Political Misdirection

 Hyderabad: Senior BJP leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy accused the Congress of promoting the narrative of “vote theft”, a misleading slogan designed to confuse the public. At a media meeting at the BJP state office, he recalled how Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, attempted to create panic during last year’s Lok Sabha elections by holding a copy of the Constitution and claiming that the BJP would end reservations.

Shashidhar Reddy citing 35 years of election data emphasised that neither Congress nor its allies had ever secured as many votes as in 2024.

He acknowledged voter list discrepancies, referencing Telangana’s 2018 election data where BJP presented evidence of 68 lakh irregularities. These included about 30 lakh duplicate votes, 18 lakh duplicates linked to Andhra Pradesh, multiple voters registered at single homes, names without house numbers, and repeated registrations of single individuals, totaling nearly 60 lakh errors.

In Hyderabad parliamentary constituency, Shashidhar Reddy said, bogus voting practices, mostly by one community, threatened free and fair elections. He demanded an immediate special intensive revision of GHMC’s 24 Assembly constituencies to clean up voter lists before upcoming local elections.

Asserting the transparency of the Election Commission’s voter list revision process, Shashidhar Reddy dismissed Congress’s “vote theft” campaign as a false narrative. He urged voters to see through Congress’s tactics and support fair democratic processes. He said claims about missing votes in Bihar were exaggerated.