Congress leader Sonia Gandhi told a Delhi court on Saturday that a complaint alleging she was included in the electoral roll three years before acquiring Indian citizenship in 1983 was “politically motivated” and filed for an extraneous reason.
Terming the petition “misconceived, frivolous, and an abuse of the process of law”, Sonia urged the court to dismiss it.
The Congress leader also questioned why the complainant, advocate Vikas Tripathi, was bringing up an issue that was over four decades old, and raised doubts about the authenticity of the document cited by him.
“Document No. 7, which, according to the complainant, is a xerox copy of the original as solemnly affirmed by him, is apparently non-authentic document because the expression ‘National Capital Territory of Delhi’ came in the official usage after the Sixty-ninth Amendment Act, 1991 (w.e.f. 1.-2-1992),” Sonia said in an affidavit filed in response to the criminal revision petition.
The complainant had cited a 1980 document.
Tripathi’s petition had challenged the magistrate court’s September 11, 2025, order that refused to lodge an FIR to probe the allegation of irregularities in the electoral rolls.
The court had said the complaint was “fashioned with the object of clothing the court with jurisdiction through allegations which are legally untenable, deficient in substance, and beyond the scope of this forum’s authority”.
In her reply filed through advocates Tarannum Cheema, Kanishka Singh and Akash Singh before special judge Vishal Gogne, Sonia said the magisterial court had rightly observed that matters of citizenship were exclusively under the central government’s domain, while an electoral roll dispute was the sole prerogative of the Election Commission.
“Criminal courts cannot usurp these functions by entertaining private complaints disguised under IPC/BNS sections. This is barred by the doctrine of separation of powers and would violate Article 329 of the Constitution, which prohibits judicial interference in the electoral process,” Sonia’s affidavit stated. “The present complaint has been filed for an extraneous reason and is apparently politically motivated,” it added.
She said the complainant made serious allegations in a reckless manner “based on his own imagination or opinion or unwarranted presumption”.
The court listed the matter for further hearing on February 21.
The controversy can be traced back to August last year, when the BJP claimed that Sonia had been illegally added to the voters’ list years before she became an Indian citizen, as a counter to Rahul Gandhi’s “vote chori” allegations. BJP social media head Amit Malviya had posted a purported photocopy of the extract from the 1980 electoral rolls on X, to buttress the claim.
