Who are Vishal Vaibhav and Sumedha Mittal, the propagandists behind Newslaundry report that Rahul Gandhi used to amplify his false claims of ‘vote chori’ against ECI

The Congress party have it in their SOP to level baseless ‘vote chori’ accusations against the Election Commission, outrage over it while its supportive media cabal concocts a web of lies packaged as facts to lend credence to the claims of their political masters. But a recent thread on social media platform X by investigative reporter Vijay Patel exposes the dark underbelly of this nexus, highlighting how Rahul Gandhi and Congress’ ‘vote chori’ propaganda campaign rests on the shoulders of shady Hinduphobic characters bent on undermining India’s democratic institutions. The biggest exposé on Rahul Gandhi’s 'Vote Chori' PPT.The entire PPT is a hoax created from conspiracy theory and based on the articles and analysis of an extremist and mentaly ill person.Read this Exclusive and explosive thread now. pic.twitter.com/0TdUVWV7Zv— Vijay Patel (@vijaygajera) September 15, 2025 While Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s ‘vote chori’ PowerPoint presentation showed during his infamous press conference on 7th August has already come under the scanner, the recent revelations further weaken his claims of electoral fraud. Gandhi is facing criticism not only due to the ‘vote chori’ presentation’s alleged foreign origins but also due to his reliance on hitjobs published in leftist propaganda outlet Newslaundry. These propaganda pieces are written by rabid Hinduphobes — one whom has been identified as one Vishal Vaibhav — to peddle conspiracy theory against the ECI. On the fourth page of the controversial PPT, Rahul Gandhi claimed that “The Maharashtra results confirmed our suspicions about Mass Scale Vote Chori’. To back the vote theft claims, the PPT cited a report by Newslaundry. The report headlined, “A flurry of new voters? The curious case of Kamthi, where the Maha BJP chief won”, is written by Vishal Vaibhav and Sumedha Mittal. Congress relying on Newslaundry propaganda pieces to cast aspersions on the integrity of the Election Commission is in itself quite telling of the credibility of their ‘vote chori’ claims. However, it has emerged that Newslaundry’s author, Vishal Vaibhav, has been a rabid Hindu hater who casually throws ‘Gaumutra’, ‘cowf*&kers’, and ‘D*%kless Hindutva’ jibes at pro-Hindu social media users over ideological differences. Source: X As per his author page on Newslaundry, Vishal Vaibhav is a former professor of physics at the IIT-Delhi. While X account ‘@panchagavyag’ which was formerly ‘@vvaibhav_iid’, “no longer exists”, screenshots of his deeply deranged and Hinduphobic posts have surfaced online. Perhaps, Hindu-hate is a top eligibility criterion for being a part of Newslaundry’s propaganda factory. Coming to the co-author of Newslaundry reports cited by Rahul Gandhi in his vote chori PPT, Sumedha Mittal not only has an ideological bias but also a past link with the Congress party. As per Sumedha Mittal’s LinkedIn page, she worked at a think tank named the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) for a brief period of time. This think tank, is owned and run by controversial Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar’s daughter Yamini Aiyar. OpIndia has earlier reported how CPR has been under scanner for violating foreign funding norms and had its license suspended by the central government. The Centre for Policy Research has been the subject of income tax raids in September 2022. The tax exemption status of Aiyar’s think tank was also revoked in July 2023. Mittal has also worked with IndiaSpend portal in the past. IndiaSpend aligns with the ideological inclinations of the Congress party the most. In addition to that, Praveen Chakravarty, the head of Congress party’s data analytics department, is a founding trustee at IndiaSpend. The website of IndiaSpend, however, does not mention him as one. OpIndia has on multiple occasions exposed IndiaSpend’s anti-Hindu anti-India falsehoods. IndiaSpend has, in the past, misrepresented the facts of a case to boost the number of Muslim victims in its database.  Newslaundry’s senior reporter, Sumedha Mittal, has contributed to anti-BJP and pro-Islamist propaganda outlets like The Wire and The Caravan as well. Interestingly, between November 2021 and September 2022, Sumedha Mittal worked as a research fellow at the Modi detractor and notorious regime change specialist, George Soros-funded Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). OCCRP received a huge share of funding from the US Department of State and the now-disbanded US Agency for International Development (USAID). The OCCRP is funded by the likes of George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF), the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. Not to forget, OCCRP had published hitjobs against businessman Gautam Adani and SEBI. The OCCRP has also repeatedly been rolling out propaganda meant to undermine Indian democracy. ‘Vote Chori’ in India, data compilation in Myanmar, lies and disinformation packaged as ‘earth-shattering’ e