Scam record · 2024 · Transparency
Vote chori: Haryana rolls, Brazilian photo row
Congress 'Vote Chori' / H-Files: a Brazilian woman's stock photo appeared on multiple Haryana voter IDs under Indian names. Rahul Gandhi alleged 25 lakh fake voters stole the 2024 assembly. Photo mess on rolls is documented. Nationwide theft and 22 votes cast by one foreign face stay contested. EC and BJP deny.
Street line: BJP stole Haryana with fake voters. The wildest proof point went global: Larissa Nery, a Brazilian hairdresser who has never been to India, found her old stock photo on Haryana electoral rolls under names like Seema, Sweety, Saraswati, and Vimla. BBC interviewed her. She confirmed the face is hers and called the whole thing crazy.
What is on the public record: in November 2025 Rahul Gandhi's H-Files presser showed one Unsplash stock image tied to 22 voter entries across 10 booths in Rai constituency. Congress alleged 25 lakh irregular entries in Haryana (duplicates, bulk registrations, invalid addresses) in a state BJP won by thin margins. Similar 'Vote Chori' claims followed for Mahadevapura (Karnataka), and opposition voices flagged rolls in Maharashtra, MP, and Chhattisgarh.
What is disputed: that those roll errors mean 25 lakh fake votes were cast, or that the Brazilian photo voted 22 times for BJP. Election Commission sources called the claims baseless, asked why Congress filed no roll appeals during revision, and said some duplicate-tagged votes in Gandhi's data went to Congress, not BJP. India Today ground reporting in Rai found real women behind some mismatched photos (clerical / data-entry errors, not a foreign agent voting). NDTV quoted local voters saying their actual cards had their real photos and they voted once.
Why it still matters even if every mismatch is 'just a typo': in a democracy, the voter list is the ballot. Duplicate entries, dead voters still listed, House Number Zero addresses, and the same face under six names are not small glitches when margins are 4,000 votes per seat. Either the rolls are broken at scale, or someone is exploiting the breaks. Both are corruption of the process.
BJP counter-punched with its own roll-analytics against Congress seats. Everyone now alleges theft. Citizens should not pick a camp and stop thinking. Demand EC transparency: Forms 6 and 7 logs, booth-wise revision objections, VVPAT slip counts where law allows, RTI on roll software audits. Treat viral 'Brazilian girl voted for Modi' as half-true at best until a court or EC inquiry names who entered the photo and whether those EPICs were used at polling.
What is proven here
Proof level: contested. Brazilian stock photo on multiple Haryana voter IDs = documented (BBC, Print, TOI, Congress slides). 25 lakh fake votes / election stolen / 22 foreign votes cast = political allegation; EC denies; ground reports show photo errors without proving mass booth fraud. Not a finished court finding of vote theft.
Sources
- BBC: Brazilian woman becomes face of vote fraud row (News + docs)
- TOI: Rahul Gandhi H-Files, 25 lakh fake voters claim (News + docs)
- The Print: Brazilian photo on 22 Haryana voter entries (News + docs)
- India Today: ground check on Brazilian photo in Rai (News + docs)
- NDTV: local voters on photo mismatch row (News + docs)
- Economic Times: Election Commission response to H-Files (News + docs)
- The Quint: Vote Chori data (Mahadevapura, duplicates) (News + docs)
- The Independent: voter list anomalies and vote theft row (News + docs)