The ‘vote theft’ revelations making headlines across India have reached Goa too, with Opposition parties alleging large-scale manipulation of electoral rolls. What began as a local probe has added heft to the national debate on electoral integrity, with cases emerging of entire clusters of non-residents registered at single addresses, properties too small to house their official occupants and phantom voters linked to bars and abandoned buildings.
In Marcaim constituency, for example, house no. 24/B at Ramnathi has become a symbol of the alleged malpractice. Records show 119 voters from multiple religions and castes living under one roof — a statistical impossibility, say critics, unless by political design.
Opposition leaders allege the listing has been engineered to benefit the ruling dispensation, with the booth-level officer (BLO) accused of wilful negligence. In a scathing jibe, they suggested he deserves a “President’s medal” for managing to secure such a model instance of “secularism” in a single household.
The pattern extends far beyond Marcaim. In Seraulim, which falls under Benaulim assembly segment, advocate Radharao Gracias has formally complained to the Election Commission of India, alleging that 100 non-local voters are registered at just two addresses. One property, which also operates as a bar, allegedly lists 80 voters from across India, while another property owned by the same person has 20 more names. Gracias says these irregularities were reported to local officials in July 2025 but remain unaddressed.
Investigations by local news channel Herald TV, conducted in collaboration with Congress’s Santa Cruz block president John Nazareth and joint secretary Edwin Vaz, further exposed 26 ‘non-Goan’ names on the voter list at house no. 404/7, owned by Shalan Hatange. Of these, 15 reportedly voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
As part of the ‘vote chori (theft)' campaign, the Congress team visited Bamonbhat in Santa Cruz, gathering video evidence to back their claims.
Perhaps the most striking example is that of Part 23, Bamonbhat, where a 32-sq. m house (paying just Rs 30 as annual house tax) is officially the address of 28 registered voters with seven different surnames.
The actual residents say they were unaware of these entries until Congress workers uncovered the anomaly. At least 15 of these ‘phantom’ voters are believed to have voted in the 2022 assembly polls.
Local Congress leaders argue that these discoveries reveal serious flaws in voter registration procedures, particularly in constituencies with high migrant population, where duplicate or fictitious entries are easier to slip through. They allege that forged documents and fabricated addresses are being used to swell voter rolls, tilting electoral outcomes.
Taking tea with the ‘dead’: Rahul Gandhi thanks ECI for interesting timesThe Election Commission’s Goa office has pledged to step up verification in high-risk constituencies and segments through field checks, public appeals for voluntary deletion of bogus entries and possible legal action against offenders. But the Opposition is pressing for immediate, transparent corrective measures, warning that the credibility of upcoming elections is at risk.
The spotlight on voter fraud has intensified since Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged at a press conference in New Delhi on 7 August that more than one lakh votes were ‘stolen’ in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly segment alone during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition had also shared five different modus operandi adopted.
The Congress party’s six-month review of the rolls in Mahadevapura found over 40,000 fake or invalid addresses — some with ‘0’ as their house number, or even places that simply do not exist — and more than 10,000 bulk voters registered at implausibly ‘shared’ locations. Opposition leaders in Goa insist that the parallels are too strong to ignore, framing the problem as part of a wider, coordinated pattern of ‘vote theft’ that undermines democracy.
