Electoral Roll
Delhi court rejects plea seeking action against Sonia Gandhi over alleged forgery in including name in electoral roll
New Delhi/IBNS: A Delhi court on Thursday dismissed a plea seeking action against Congress veteran Sonia Gandhi over the alleged inclusion of her name in the electoral roll even before she had attained Indian citizenship, media reports said.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Vaibhav Chaurasia had reserved the order on Wednesday.
The plea had accused Sonia of forging documents to get her name enrolled in the voters' list.
The petitioner's counsel argued in the court that the inclusion of Sonia's name in the voters' list was irregular as she was not an Indian citizen at that time.
"In January 1980, she was not a citizen of India. How then could her name be included in the electoral rolls?,"senior advocate Pavan Narang, who appeared for the petitioner, said as quoted by Hindustan Times.
Earlier, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) countered Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi's opposition to Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and "voter fraud" claims alleging his mother Sonia Gandhi had featured in the electoral rolls even before she became an Indian citizen.
In a long X post, BJP's IT Cell head Amit Malviya had alleged the former Congress president, an Italian by origin, was included in the voter list twice before getting Indian citizenship in 1983.
Malviya had written on X, "Sonia Gandhi’s tryst with India’s voters’ list is riddled with glaring violations of electoral law. This perhaps explains Rahul Gandhi’s fondness for regularising ineligible and illegal voters, and his opposition to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
"Her name first appeared on the rolls in 1980 — three years before she became an Indian citizen and while she still held Italian citizenship. At the time, the Gandhi family lived at 1, Safdarjung Road, the official residence of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Until then, the voters registered at that address were Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi, and Maneka Gandhi."
"In 1980, the electoral rolls of the New Delhi parliamentary constituency were revised with January 1, 1980, as the qualifying date. During this revision, Sonia Gandhi’s name was added, appearing at serial number 388 in polling station 145. This entry was a clear violation of the law, which requires a person to be an Indian citizen to be registered as a voter. Following an outcry in 1982, her name was deleted from the list — only to reappear in 1983."
He added, "But even her reinstatement raised serious questions. In the fresh revision of the electoral rolls that year, Sonia Gandhi was listed at serial number 236 in polling station 140. The qualifying date for registration was January 1, 1983 — yet she was granted Indian citizenship only on April 30, 1983.
"In other words, Sonia Gandhi’s name entered the electoral rolls twice without meeting the basic citizenship requirement — first as an Italian citizen in 1980, and then again in 1983, months before she legally became a citizen of India. We are not even asking why it took her 15 years after marrying Rajiv Gandhi to accept Indian citizenship. If this isn’t blatant electoral malpractice, what is?"
Sonia, now 78, tied the knot with former Indian Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi in 1968.
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