Rahul Gandhi’s ‘1 crore vote surge in Maharashtra’ claim not supported by EC data

A day after the August 8 press conference, where Congress leader Rahul Gandhi flagged alleged irregularities in the voter list of Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly constituency, he addressed a Vote Adhikar Rally in Karnataka, where he claimed that 1 crore new votes had ‘magically’ appeared in Maharashtra in the four to five months between the assembly elections in April-May-June 2024 and the Lok Sabha elections in November 2024.

“First, the Lok Sabha elections happen, and then the Vidhan Sabha elections happen. Our alliance won the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra. Four months later, the BJP won the Vidhan Sabha in Maharashtra. It was a surprising result. When we enquired, we found that 1 crore new voters voted in the Vidhan Sabha. 1 crore new people who did not vote in the Lok Sabha magically appeared to vote in the Vidhan Sabha… Votes for our alliance did not go down. Whatever we got in the Vidhan Sabha, we got the same in the Lok Sabha. And all the increased votes went to the BJP…”, said Gandhi.

This was not the only time Gandhi claimed that 1 crore voters had been added between the two elections in Maharashtra. On August 17, 2025, during the launch of the Voter Adhikar Yatra by the INDIA bloc in Sasaram, Bihar, the Leader of Opposition put forth the same figure of 1 crore.

“During the Lok Sabha elections, our alliance won. After four months, in the same state, the BJP’s alliance swept the elections. Upon enquiry, we found that after the Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission magically added 1 crore new voters. Between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha, there is a difference of 1 crore voters…We did not lose votes. Whatever votes we got in the Lok Sabha, we got in the Vidhan Sabha. BJP got all the new votes and they won the election…”, said Gandhi during his speech.

Readers should note that on February 3, Rahul Gandhi made a related claim in the Parliament. His exact words were the following:

“Between the Lok Sabha election which the INDIA alliance won and the Vidhan Sabha election, the voting population of Himachal Pradesh was added to the voting roll of Maharashtra. Meaning the entire population of Himachal Pradesh was added to the voter rolls of Maharashtra. Please understand what I am saying. In Lok Sabha… the difference between Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha was the population of Himachal Pradesh. The entire population… Almost 70 lakh new voters suddenly arrived between Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha…”

Fact Check

To cross-check the claims of vote surge by Rahul Gandhi, we looked for the relevant data on the Election Commission website.

According to the Maharashtra Lok Sabha Election Results 2024 handbook released by the chief electoral officer (CEO) for the state, the total number of votes polled in Lok Sabha elections held in April-May-June 2024 was 5,71,79,131, i.e., a little over 5.7 crore.

Again, as per the Voter Turnout (VTR) data available on the CEO Maharashtra’s website, the total number of votes polled in the assembly election in Maharashtra held in November 2024 was 6,40,88,195, i.e., a little over 6.4 crore.

The difference between these two, i.e., the total votes polled in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha elections 2024 and the assembly elections held five months later, is 69,09,064, or a little over 69 Lakh, and not 1 crore as Rahul Gandhi claimed. (See table below)

We also looked at the number of votes polled by the two rival political groups in the state — the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) — in the two elections.

In the April-May Lok Sabha polls, the NDA amassed 2,43,45,345 votes, i.e., a little over 2.4 crore. This is the sum total of votes polled by the BJP (1,49,13,914), the Shiv Sena (73,77,674) and the NCP (20,53,757).

Five months down the line, the NDA received 3,11,07,146, i.e., a little over 3.1 crore votes in the Maharashtra assembly elections, the BJP’s tally being 1,72,93,650, the Shiv Sena’s 79,96,930 and the NCP receiving 58,16,566 votes.

So, the difference, or the jump in NDA’s votes stood at 67,61,801, or a little below 68 Lakh, which is near about the same as the jump in total votes polled (69,09,064).

Let’s now look at how the MVA fared in these two polls. In the Lok Sabha polls, MVA amassed 2,50,15,819 or a little over 2.5 crore votes. This is the sum total of votes polled by the Indian National Congress (9641856), the Shiv Sena-UBT (9522797) and the NCP-SP (5851166).

In the state polls in November, the MVA’s vote tally came down by 32,74,088 to 2,17,41,731 or a little below 2.2 crore votes, with the INC amassing 80,20,921, the Shiv Sena-UBT 64,33,013 and the NCP-SP 72,87,797 votes.

To conclude, our analysis based on Election Commission data proves Rahul Gandhi wrong on at least three counts — one, between Lok Sabha and assembly polls in Maharashtra in 2024, there was a 69 Lakh increase in voter turnout and not 1 crore.

Secondly, Gandhi’s assertion that the ‘1 crore new votes’ all went to the BJP, too, is inaccurate. One can surmise that by BJP, the Congress leader actually meant the NDA. The difference between total votes polled by the NDA in the two elections held five months apart was approximately 68 Lakh.

Thirdly, the MVA’s vote count was not the same in the two polls, as Rahul Gandhi claimed. There was a 33 Lakh decrease in their votes from Lok Sabha to assembly, which is by no means a negligible number.

As far as the remarks by the LoP in the House on February 3 are concerned, if by “70 lakh new voters” Gandhi meant the addition in votes polled or voter turnout, his data is very close to the actual figure. However, if he was talking about the increase in number of voters on the electoral role, the figure cited by him is not supported by EC data. According to the poll panel, 40,81,229 i.e., approximately 41 Lakh new voters were added to the Maharashtra electoral roll in the five months from Lok Sabha polls to assembly polls in the state in 2024.