Gopinath and his wife had cast their votes in the Assembly as well as the general elections. Yet, he was unaware of the 43 other voters "living" with them.
Published Aug 10, 2025 | 12:00 AM ⚊ Updated Aug 20, 2025 | 9:51 PM
TS Gopinath in front of his house at Chowdeshwari Layout in Marathahalli.
Synopsis: South First visited two addresses that Rahul Gandhi had mentioned in his PowerPoint presentation, which accused of widespread rigging of the elections. The owners were unaware of the other voters sharing their address. Interestingly, one address was that of a popular microbrewery in Whitefield. The sudden media attention has left them baffled and scared.
TS Gopinath is visibly surprised, confused, and shaken. For the past three decades, his life has been largely uneventful in his typical lower-middle-class, single-room house, where he lives with his wife and son.
Today, his address, #791 on 1st Cross Road in Marathahalli’s Chowdeshwari Layout, is known across India, which has left the retired man and his family baffled. Gopinath was unaware that 43 others — all adults — have also been living under the same roof, at least on paper.
TS Gopinath’s house has 46 voters, according to ECI records, said Rahul Gandhi.
The sudden media attention on him has scared Gopinath. It all began with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s PowerPoint presentation at the INDIA dinner meet in New Delhi on 7 August. The presentation mentioned Gopinath’s address, where Gandhi said that according to the Special Summary Revision of 4 April 2024, 46 people have been living — all voters of booth number 366.
“This is all fraud. We are only three of us — me, my wife, and our son,” Gopinath said. His wife felt his words may not have convinced the visitors. “Ask anyone living in this lane,” she added, fear written large on her face.
Gopinath said he and his wife had cast their votes in the Assembly as well as the general elections. Yet, he was unaware of the 43 other voters “living” with them.
The couple lives in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment that falls under the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha constituency, represented by BJP’s PC Mohan in Parliament.
This is the same segment where the Congress conducted a six-month investigation before Gandhi made the allegation of massive voter fraud.
Microbrewery, The 153 Biere Street, has 68 voters.
He said more than one lakh voters were wrongfully added to the electoral rolls to aid the BJP. He said the names of the same voters appeared multiple times in the rolls, the same voter in multiple states, non-existent addresses, bulk voters at a single address, indistinguishable photos on voter IDs, and misuse of Form 6 meant for first-time voters.
And the allegation changed Gopinath’s life as the public gaze fell on him for no fault of his.
Besides Gopinath’s house, Gandhi also mentioned another single-room house, #35, 5th Cross Road, Muni Reddy Garden, in the same constituency, where 80 voters have been “living”. Yet another address mentioned was not a house, but a popular microbrewery in Whitefield.
According to the Election Commission record that Gandhi had sourced, the address, The 153 Biere Street, has 68 voters. The manager and other staff members were reluctant to speak to the media, but allowed clicking pictures of the premises. However, they told South First that they were unaware of the happenings since they are a commercial establishment.
Gandhi, during his visit to Bengaluru on 8 August, addressed a massive rally — the Vote Adhikar Rally — at the Freedom Park and spoke about what he termed the “PM Voter Awas Yojna.”
“In Karnataka, as per our internal assessment, we were set to win 16 Lok Sabha seats, but won only nine. So, we started asking questions about whether we lost these seats. We asked the Election Commission for the digital voter list, but it refused. It also didn’t give us the videographs, and changed the law to limit the time of retention of CCTV footage to 45 days,” he said.
“When we didn’t get help from the Election Commission, we started an investigation on our own. We chose the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in Bengaluru Central. In my press conference yesterday, I proved 100% that the BJP and the Election Commission had colluded to steal votes. There are 6.5 lakh votes in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment, out of which 1,00,250 votes were stolen. This implies that 1 out of every 6 votes was stolen,” he said.
Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said the vote theft was done through five ways: 1. Duplicate voters – one person voting at multiple booths, some found in voters’ lists of different states — 11,965 such voters; 2. Fake and invalid address – no address or house numbers — about 40,000 such voters; 3. Bulk voters – up to 80 people shown to be living in one-bedroom houses, and the homeowners are BJP leaders — 10,452 such voters; 4. Invalid photo – either no photo or a very small-size photo that the face can’t be recognised — 4,132 such voters; and 5. Misuse of Form 6, meant for first-time voters – about 34,000 such voters with an age of up to 80-90 years.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP se[cured 6,58,915 votes in the Bengaluru Central seat, winning with a margin of 32,707.
The Election Commission is supposed to work for the Constitution, not for the ruling party. The Election Commission is attacking the constitutional foundational idea of ‘one person, one vote’. It is attacking the poor people of the country. If they are thinking they can get away with this, I want to tell them – it’ll take time, but we will catch each one of you, one by one. If you attack the Constitution, we’ll attack you. The Constitution is the voice of India,” Gandhi said on Saturday.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
