Gurugram: The Nayab Singh Saini-led BJP government issued lakhs of Below Poverty Line (BPL) cards before the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections to get votes through “allurement”, but is now striking those names off, Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda has alleged, calling it a scam, and another form of “vote chori (theft)”. Hooda made the charge a day after the Monsoon Session of Haryana Vidhan Sabha concluded Wednesday.
According to a reply by the government during the Monsoon Session, more than 10 lakh families were struck off from the Below Poverty Line (BPL) list in the past four months. The Congress, led by Hooda, latched onto this number to take aim at the Saini government.
“As elections drew near, lakhs of BPL cards were issued at a great speed, even to those ineligible because of their higher incomes,” Hooda alleged. “By doing so, BJP secured votes of lakhs of people, and now, after forming the government for a third time, it is starting to show its true colours. Every day, thousands of families are being struck off the BPL list.”
“Nearly 11 (10) lakh families have had their ration cards cancelled, depriving them of the benefits of government schemes,” Hooda alleged, terming this “vote theft”.
He claimed some genuine BPL families have also been struck off the list.
CM Nayab Singh Saini, in reply to the question in the Assembly, said families whose annual income is more than Rs 1,80,000 are no longer considered for BPL benefits in line with government guidelines. The existing mechanism automatically issues BPL cards from the state’s Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP) database once income information is verified, he said.
Also Read: Haryana is caught in a paradox. 3rd in per capita income, yet 75% there live below poverty line
Numbers tell a story
According to the government’s response in the Assembly, Haryana had 52,37,671 BPL families as on 31 March this year, but the number went down drastically to 41,93,669 as on 22 August—a decline of more than 10 lakh families within five months.
The question was asked by Congress MLA Shishpal Keharwala, who represents Kalanwali constituency in Sirsa. After the government presented the figures, the Congress launched an attack, accusing the BJP of indulging in “vote chori”.
The term “vote chori” has been at the centre of the Congress’s campaign against BJP across the country since Rahul Gandhi held a press conference at the AICC HQ on 7 August alleging manipulation of voter lists by the Election Commission in connivance with the BJP.
The Congress has deployed this strategy in its rallies, social media campaign and public meetings, particularly during Gandhi’s ongoing yatra in Bihar. Even in Haryana, Congress MLAs led by the party’s state president Udai Bhan and Bhupinder Singh Hooda marched on foot to the state Assembly in protest against the alleged “vote chori” on 25 August.
After the Haryana BPL deletion numbers came out, Congress Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda took to micro-blogging platform X to talk about what he described as “BPL for Votes Scam”.
In his post, Hooda claimed that shortly before the 2024 elections, the BJP government distributed lakhs of new BPL cards to attract voters, which ended up with 75 percent of the population of the state being reflected as living under the poverty line. “These families were later provided with free ration for three-four months, and soon after the 2024 elections, more than 10 lakh BPL cards were withdrawn at the same rate,” he claimed.
He underlined the political implications of these figures by saying that “10 lakh families account for 25 percent of the state’s voters”. Adding, “In the Assembly polls in Haryana, the BJP defeated the Congress by a mere 22,000 votes, or 0.5 percent vote share.”
हरियाणा में “BPL फॉर वोट घोटाला” का पूरा सच अब जनता के सामने आ गया है। बीजेपी ने 2024 चुनाव से जस्ट पहले वोटरों को प्रलोभन देने के लिए 10 लाख नए BPL कार्ड बनवाए जिससे प्रदेश की 75% आबादी गरीबी रेखा के नीचे आ गई!
फिर इन परिवारों को 3-4 फ्री राशन बाँटने व 2024 चुनाव में वोटिंग के… pic.twitter.com/Qe35bcB4xM— Deepender Singh Hooda (@DeependerSHooda) August 27, 2025
In the Vidhan Sabha too, the Congress attempted to initiate a discussion on the issue, but the Speaker did not allow it and moved to the next question.
Departmental note sheds light
A senior officer with Haryana’s food, civil supplies and consumer affairs department told ThePrint on condition of anonymity that the government had already discovered ahead of the general election that many undeserving people had made their way into the BPL list.
“But, since the government first had to go into Lok Sabha polls in April-May 2024, and then Haryana Vidhan Sabha polls came in quick succession, the government did not find it politically expedient to apply the stick to undeserving elements covered under the list,” the officer said.
He explained that once the Assembly elections were over, the BJP government returned to power in Haryana, despite pre-poll predictions to the contrary, and the Maharashtra Assembly elections followed closely. Hence, the officer said, any deletions in the BPL list were at the time viewed as a potentially “politically unwise step”.
Adding, “However, the cost of the inclusion of undeserving families in the BPL list was becoming prohibitive for the state government.” This is reflected in a note prepared by the food, civil supplies and consumer affairs department after the Assembly elections to draw the government’s attention to the gravity of the problem.
The note from November 2024, accessed by ThePrint, traces the inclusion of families in the BPL list, starting from before the BJP came to power in Haryana for the first time in October 2014.
The note says that before the introduction of the National Food Security Act (NFSA), in 2013, there were 12.86 lakh families below the poverty line and 54.41 lakh beneficiaries in Haryana. The state government implemented the NFSA on the basis of this data.
Ever since the Haryana government integrated the Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP), a family identity scheme launched by the state BJP government, with the public distribution system (PDS) in January 2023, the number of beneficiaries started shooting up, because information, including the family income, in the PPP was provided by the families.
“Now, foodgrains are being provided free of cost to 51.73 lakh households—2.93 lakh Antodaya Ann Yojana (AAY) households, being the poorest of the poor, and 48.80 lakh Priority Households—under Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Ann Yojana (PMGKAY). Presently, the number of beneficiaries is 2.11 crore under the NFSA,” says the note.
Under NFSA, 35 kg of food grain per AAY family and 5 kg per Priority Households family is being distributed free of cost in the state. The combined number is approximately 51.73 lakh (2.93 lakh AAY ration cards and 48.80 lakh PH ration cards) since January 2023.
The note explains that there was a 52 percent increase in the number of families under NFSA from January 2023 to October 2024.
Adding, “Presently, 1.04 Lakh MT (per month) of food grain is required under NFSA, but the Government of India has allocated only 66,250 MT of wheat under NFSA every month. There is a shortfall of 40,000 MT of food grain which is being managed by the State Government by spending approximately Rs 119 crore monthly from its own budget.”
It also says that while earlier, all ration card-related services were delivered through a single-window SARAL portal at the government level, now the process of BPL/AAY ration card preparation has been simplified by the state government by allowing citizens to prepare their own cards. “The applicants need not apply for BPL/AAY ration cards; rather the same are being generated automatically with the help of the PPP database as per their income criteria for those having a family income of up to Rs 1.80 lakh per annum and subject to exclusion criteria fixed by the Citizen Resources Information Department (CRID), the department tasked with the PPP scheme,” said the officer quoted earlier.
The officer explained that besides the annual family income of up to Rs 1.80 lakh, the Haryana government has fixed several other exclusion criteria for BPL status like taxpayer status, government job, family owning a motorised four-wheeled vehicle.
Those who own more than two acres of land, have a house on a plot larger than 100 square yards, have an air conditioner, record average power consumption of more than 300 units per month cannot be a part of the list. Neither can a family which owns or operates an enterprise registered with the government or those with multiple ration cards.
The officer quoted earlier said that after the Assembly polls, the government instituted a campaign to weed out ineligible families from the list by studying and matching databases with various departments including the e-vahan portal information regarding vehicle ownership, property registration, the electricity department, and other sources.
The government started identifying families who had supposedly given fake income statements to get the BPL cards. The crackdown accelerated in 2025.
In April this year, the state government issued an ultimatum to families to voluntarily leave the BPL category by 20th of the month if they fall short of the criteria. It warned that once the deadline was over, cases of fraud under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) would be lodged against the offenders with possible two-year imprisonment, if convicted.
Haryana BJP spokesperson Sanjay Sharma, however, denied the increase in the number of BPL families from 2023 to 2024. He also said deletions in recent months had nothing to do with the elections. “The scheme is income-based and there are several exclusion criteria fixed by the government. A person can visit any common service centre or use one’s own system to apply for and download the card. If some discrepancies in the declaration of income come to the government’s notice, such cards are bound to be deleted.”
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
Also Read: Is Haryana facing ‘pauperisation’? BPL ration cards surge 5x, AAY beneficiaries up 20%