Sonia Gandhi acquired voting rights in India even before becoming Indian: BJP

Amid Opposition stir against alleged electoral malpractices in the country, BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya claimed on Wednesday that Congress leader Sonia Gandhi had become a voter in India even before she could acquire Indian citizenship.

“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 SIR,” Malviya said in a post on X, criticising Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.

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The BJP official made the remarks after Congress criticised alleged irregularities in the voters’ list and opposed the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar.

Sonia Gandhi’s name, Malviya said, first appeared on the electoral rolls in 1980 — three years before she obtained Indian citizenship, when she still held Italian citizenship.

At the time, he further said, the Gandhi family lived at 1, Safdarjung Road, the official residence of the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi. The voters registered at that address were Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi and Maneka Gandhi.

The electoral rolls for the New Delhi parliamentary constituency were revised with January 1, 1980, as the qualifying date. During the revision, Sonia Gandhi’s name was added at serial number 388 in polling station 145, he claimed.

“This entry was a clear violation of the law, which mandates Indian citizenship for voter registration,” Malviya alleged.

Following an outcry in 1982, her name was deleted, but it reappeared in 1983.

Malviya pointed out that in the fresh revision that year, Sonia Gandhi was listed at serial number 236 in polling station 140, with January 1, 1983, as the qualifying date — even though 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 in 1980 as an Italian citizen, and then again in 1983, months before she legally became a citizen of India,” he said.

Questioning why it took her 15 years after marrying Rajiv Gandhi to accept Indian citizenship, he said it was a blatant electoral malpractice.

He also attached an extract from the 1980 electoral rolls to the post to prove his point.