India election: ineligible 17-year-old votes 8 times for PM Modi’s BJP, as rivals claim fraud in polls

Indian police on Monday detained an ineligible 17-year-old for voting eight times for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party, as rivals screamed voter fraud in the ongoing national polls.

The Election Commission of India suspended poll officials and ordered a fresh vote at the polling station after the excited minor’s video of himself voting for the Hindu nationalist, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), went viral.

“This is the second vote,” the boy says, smiling into his phone’s camera after pressing the electronic voting machine button for a BJP candidate in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and a political bellwether.

“Now look! This is my third vote … have now voted five times already, now going for the sixth time,” he adds with a finger-count gesture after every press, before finally stopping after the eighth time.

The minimum voting age in India is 18 years.

“We have detained the juvenile and prima facie he has verified what was visible to all in the viral video,” said deputy police superintendent Dhananjay Singh Kushwaha.

“He told us that he voted eight times and made the video,” the officer added, refusing to comment further.

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The chief electoral office in Uttar Pradesh said on X, formerly Twitter, that all polling officials at the polling station had been suspended and would be disciplined.

The incident occurred in Farrukhabad, about 190 kilometres (120 miles) west of the state capital Lucknow.

Uttar Pradesh, in the north of the country, has more than 250 million people — a larger population than Brazil — and its 80 MPs are key to anyone seeking national power in India.

Modi is widely expected to win the poll, but his political rivals flagged the