According to the Serot family, original residents of H/N 265, names from outside their clan began appearing in the voters’ list against this address after 2016. These include voters from other castes living nearby, as well as some names the family says they do not recognise. However, one of the Serot clan members—Shiv Ram Serot—a BJP worker and former councillor of the Hodal municipal council, dismissed claims of addition of names.
In the voters’ list of Booth No. 162—polling station HGM Senior Secondary School—502 votes (not 501 as stated by Gandhi) are registered against H/N 265. Not just that, there are two more votes against H/N 265/1, 14 against 265/A, 42 against 265/B, three against 265/K (of Hindi alphabet), and seven against 265/G (of Hindi alphabet).
Given that the elector-population ratio (EP Ratio) in the state is 63.04, according to the 2019 data on the website of the Chief Electoral Officer, Haryana, the number of people associated with H/N 265, including those under voting age or settled elsewhere, would be significantly larger, approximately 630.
As for the other address mentioned by Rahul Gandhi, votes registered under H/N 150 are those of family members of BJP Zila Parishad chief Umesh Gurdhana, a Gujjar. These include daughters from the family who married outside the village but still remain on the voters’ list.
Nine Dalit voters are also registered against the same address.
Speaking to ThePrint, Congress leader Udai Bhan said that houses numbered 265 and 150 are not the only addresses with multiple votes in the Hodal assembly constituency.
“We have 42 houses in Hodal with 100 or more votes; 42,990 voters are registered in houses with 20 or more votes; and 1,863 people have duplicate votes,” Udai Bhan said, adding that if a household has 20 or more votes, there has to be a special verification, according to the mandate of the Election Commission of India.
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H/N 265 voters’ list altered in 2016?
At H/N 265 in Hodal town, as directed by residents, there are five houses in a row. Its residents are the five sons of late Ram Het Serot: Ram Swaroop, Hari Singh, Jawahar Singh, Prem Singh, and Digambar Singh.
Ram Swaroop’s family has seven voters, including himself (81), his wife Kishni (72), son Zile Singh (48), his wife Sunita (46), their son Pawan Kumar, daughter-in-law Anju, and another son Bharat.
The families of Hari Singh, Jawahar Singh, Prem Singh, and Digambar Singh have six, four, four, and five voters, respectively.
Hari Singh Serot’s son, Sunder Singh (42), tells ThePrint that the voters’ list was not like this at the time of the 2014 Lok Sabha and assembly elections.
Only votes of his extended family of a little over 100 members—his sons, grandsons, great-grandsons, their spouses, and other relatives—were listed under H/N 265, he says. “The multiple numbers, including those from families belonging to other castes in the vicinity, were added against H/N 265 for the first time in 2016 during the local bodies’ elections, and then again in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections held in 2019 and 2024.”
Sunder’s uncle Shiv Ram Serot, a BJP worker and former councillor of the Hodal municipal council, explains that his grandfather, Kundan Singh Serot, had four sons—Shri Ram, Ram Het, Hari Chandi, and Dewan Chand.
“While I am the son of Hari Chandi (now deceased), Sunder Singh is my nephew, as he is the grandson of my taya (father’s elder brother), Ram Het. As you’ve counted Ram Het’s family members, the families of Shri Ram, Hari Chandi, and Dewan Chand also live nearby, and they too have their votes here (H/N 265),” Shiv Ram tells ThePrint.
That’s not it. According to Shiv Ram, his grandfather Kundan Singh Serot’s younger brother Chandan Singh Serot had three sons whose families also reside in the same locality, “and they, too, have their votes here.”
All counted, the families of Kundan Singh and Chandan Singh must have over 150 votes, he says.
Asked how 502 votes could be registered against the same address, Shiv Ram says the area developed over time as an unregulated colony on his forefathers’ land, and many houses built there had no official house numbers. “The booth-level officers (BLOs) began mentioning H/N 265 for all residents in the vicinity over a period of time,” he submits.
When ThePrint points out Sunder Singh’s claim that voters outside their clan were not shown against H/N 265 until the 2014 elections, Shiv Ram responds by saying that such listings had existed since the Congress era.
Former Haryana Congress president Udai Bhan, who unsuccessfully contested the Hodal assembly election in both 2019 and 2024, says not all 502 votes registered against H/N 265 were fake.
However, there were many outside voters, especially from UP, and largely BJP supporters, Udai Bhan says.
“I lost the 2024 elections by just 2,595 votes, but Hodal town, including the area where these 502 voters are registered, has over 4,000 voters from Uttar Pradesh,” alleges Bhan.
Udai Bhan says he is compiling detailed data on this, and would share it soon.
“We weren’t aware Rahul ji (Rahul Gandhi) would hold a press conference so soon. We were still in the process of doing our research, and with a little more time, we could have come out with the specifics,” says Bhan.
His son Devesh Kumar, among those who probed alleged irregularities in the electoral roll for the Congress, says neither his father nor Rahul Gandhi claimed all 502 voters were fake. “Rahul ji flagged how Election Commission could allow 501 voters to be registered under one roof (H/N 265).”
Devesh alleges the voters’ list showing multiple names under a single address first appeared in 2016, when Shiv Ram Serot contested municipal elections. “He is a BJP man, and he won that election. It appears he altered the list.”
Shiv Ram denies the allegation, saying while he continues to be a staunch BJP supporter, his nephew Sunder Singh and the families of his four uncles support Udai Bhan. The address H/N 265 belongs to all of them, he adds.
“Udai Bhan has not been able to digest his defeat in two successive elections. He never made such allegations when he won. Now that people have chosen the BJP, he is making these accusations,” says Shiv Ram.
During a verification of the voters’ list, ThePrint found several inconsistencies. For instance, Prahlad (Serial No. 15), son of Parsa Ram, is a Gadia Lohar—part of a nomadic ironsmith community—who does not live near H/N 265 but in a thatched hut near a dharam kanta (truck weighing station) owned by the Serot family.
Similarly, no one in the locality knew the wife of Suresh Chander, Dimple Bansal (67) (Serial No. 34). We don’t have any Bansals in our locality, at least three residents confirm.
Asked about Serial No. 42 voter—Suresh Chand (67), son of Jiwan Lal—Sunder Singh identifies him as living near the New Sabji Mandi, not within their locality. “This is what I’ve been saying—voters from areas unrelated to our colony have also been listed under H/N 265,” he says.
Their locality is known as Krishna Colony, but several voters from nearby Shiv Colony remain registered under H/N 265, Sunder Singh adds.
Responding to allegations that out-of-state voters were registered locally, Sunder Singh says people from Piprahwa, Bargaon, Lalpur, Bathain Kalan, Umrala, Kadauna, and other villages of UP settled in Hodal and have been living there for several years. “These people moved from villages to the town for their children’s education and built homes in this area. However, it is true that many still have their votes registered in Uttar Pradesh, as well.”
House No. 150, Gurdhana
Ten kilometres from Hodal, on the Delhi road, lies Sarai. Two kilometres after taking a right turn from Sarai is the quiet village of Gurdhana.
After passing through modest homes, ThePrint reached a stretch of half a dozen well-built kothis (bungalows), with SUVs parked outside.
“This is H/N 150,” says Umesh Gurdhana, Zila Parishad chief of Hodal and owner of the house.
“My father, Raja Ram, was one of nine brothers—Jagmal, Ganga Ram, Suresh, Nepal, Dharampal, Ramesh, Rajpal, and Kamal. The last, Kamal, passed away recently,” he tells ThePrint, pointing to a banner on H/N 150, which serves as an office, commemorating Kamal. “The family members of all nine brothers live in these kothis, and most of the votes belong to them.”
When told Udai Bhan flagged several Scheduled Caste (SC) voters registered against H/N 150, Umesh claims those mentioned lived nearby, though he declines to divulge any more details about them.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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