Congress on Saturday, 16 August, stepped up its campaign against alleged “vote theft,” releasing a new video titled “Laapata Vote” — an allusion to Bollywood movies — to underscore its claim.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, in a video posted on X, said: “‘Chori chori, chupke chupke’ no more, the public has woken up.” The Congress, sharing the same clip on its official account, asserted that the “theft of your vote is theft of rights”.

“Let’s raise our voice against vote theft together and save our rights,” the party said.

In the video, a man is shown pleading inside a police station that his “vote has been stolen.” He further tells officials that “lakhs of votes are being stolen,” prompting the police personnel to wonder aloud if their own votes have also been “stolen.”

The minute-long video is titled ‘laapata vote’ with ‘ladies’ cut out from between, a reference to the Kiran Rao-directed movie ‘Laapata Ladies’.