Mumbai: Days after Lok Sabha leader of opposition and senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi highlighted “voter fraud” in Maharashtra's Rajura constituency, BBC News Marathi tested his allegations on the ground.

The BBC travelled to Chandrapur's Rajura assembly constituency and found that the FIR, registered in October 2024 – a month before the state assembly election – has made no progress.

Even 11 months after the FIR was lodged, the police have not contacted those who allegedly used their mobile phones to add new names to the voters' list, BBC News Marathi found.

The BBC interviewed one person named in the FIR, whose identity was withheld to protect their privacy. This individual told BBC News Marathi that they were unaware their name was mentioned in the FIR and that the Rajura police had never approached them for investigation.

At a press conference earlier this month, Gandhi claimed that over 6,000 bogus names were added to the voters' list. Following a complaint by Congress workers in Rajura, the Election Commission acknowledged that the names were bogus and removed them from the electoral list in October 2024. The tehsildar’s office registered a complaint soon after.

The BBC Marathi story suggests the possibility of nearly 10,000 bogus names on the list. BBC Marathi correspondent Bhagyashree Raut searched for names listed in the electoral roll and attempted to locate them at the provided addresses. Many names did not exist, and in some cases, the addresses themselves were non-existent.

For instance, Raut searched for one Afaque Haidar Jafar Hussain at the address listed in the electoral roll, but no such person was found.

On September 15, Aniket Aga reported for The Wire about the distribution of a staggering 40.81 lakh increase in names in Maharashtra's electoral rolls over the five months between the general elections and the state assembly elections in 2024.

Rajura is the third constituency where Gandhi highlighted discrepancies during his press conferences. In the first press conference, he focused on Mahadevapura assembly constituency in Bengaluru, Karnataka, where “fake names” were allegedly added to the voters' list.

In the next press conference, Gandhi discussed Aland in Karnataka, where names were deleted from the list, and Rajura, where as many as 6,853 bogus names were allegedly added to the voters' list.

In both the Aland and Rajura constituencies, FIRs have been registered. In Aland, Gandhi alleged that the Election Commission was not cooperating with the police investigation, a claim later supported by the Congress-led government in Karnataka.

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