New Delhi: As Bihar voted in the first of two phases on Thursday, a political storm erupted after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress accused BJP Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha of “voter fraud”.
A day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged that the BJP carried out “voter theft” in the 2024 Haryana polls, it was alleged that Sinha voted in both the Delhi Assembly elections held in February and Thursday’s Bihar Assembly polls.
AAP leader and former Delhi minister Saurabh Bharadwaj claimed that Sinha cast his vote from Dwarka during the Delhi polls earlier this year and again from Siwan in Bihar on Thursday.
“He teaches at Motilal Nehru College, Delhi University, so he couldn’t even show his Bihar address if he knew it. Do you think that if we catch the BJP government’s theft, they will mend their ways? Absolutely not, they will indulge in open and blatant theft,” Bharadwaj said in a series of posts on X.
Sinha refuted the allegation against him.
“I had no idea that politics could be so trivial. Those who question the faith in the Constitution should think a hundred times. My name was in the Delhi voter list. Due to my active involvement in Bihar’s politics, I got my name changed to the village of Manser Pur (Begusarai). Should I file a defamation case for this accusation?” Sinha retorted.
Asserting that his name exists only in Bihar’s electoral roll, Sinha accused the Opposition of spreading lies.
“A baseless and morally contested allegation is being levelled against me by liars and morally degraded leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress. My name was earlier in Delhi’s electoral roll and I got it deleted through the procedure established by law,” he wrote on X, sharing what he said were Election Commission documents to support his claim.
Sinha said he had shifted his voter registration to his ancestral village in Begusarai due to his “active involvement” in Bihar politics.
“My ancestral home is in Begusarai. I am not a man uprooted from the soil. I came to my village, taking leave and spending money to cast my vote. Who is talking about the values of the Constitution? The Aam Aadmi Party is a blot on democracy,” Sinha said.
Bharadwaj hit back, asking, “If you teach at Motilal Nehru College of Delhi University, then how can you change your home address, Professor Sahib? For political activism, where is changing your vote mandatory, Leader Ji? How long will BJP silence people by scaring them with defamation cases? Your government has filed many cases; one more is fine.”
Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate backed the allegation. “BJP leader Rakesh Sinha voted in the Delhi Assembly elections in February 2025; voted in the Bihar Assembly elections on November 5. Under which scheme is this happening?”
Bharadwaj pointed out that under Section 19(b) of the Representation of the People Act, a person’s voting eligibility is linked to the place where they reside and work.
“BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP and RSS thinker Rakesh Singh Ji got a new voter ID made in Bihar on 28.4.2025, was seeking votes from the Delhi University Teachers’ Association on 4.9.2025, teaches in a college. The law says your vote will be where you work and live, not in the ancestral village,” Bharadwaj said.
Alleging that this was not an isolated case, Bharadwaj unveiled what he called two more “exposes” involving BJP leaders accused of dual voting.
“BJP Delhi Purvanchal Morcha president Santosh Ojha first voted in the Delhi Assembly elections on February 5, 2025, and then in the Bihar Assembly elections on November 6, 2025,” the AAP leader claimed. “Who knows how many such people are voting in multiple states to help the BJP win through fraud?”
Bharadwaj demanded the Election Commission of India (ECI) investigate the matter thoroughly.
“If someone’s name remains in another state’s voter list, it’s virtually impossible for them to vote elsewhere. How did this happen?”
