A plea has been filed in a Delhi court seeking action against Sonia Gandhi, alleging that her name appeared on the electoral rolls in 1980, three years before she became an Indian citizen. The court, led by Magistrate Vaibhav Chaurasia, will continue hearings on September 10 to examine the claims of citizenship fraud and voter irregularities. The complaint, moved by advocate Vikas Tripathi, seeks an inquiry into how Gandhi was able to cast her vote even before she became a citizen of India.

The BJP has alleged that Sonia Gandhi was registered as a voter years before she became an Indian citizen, intensifying its counter-offensive against the Opposition's "vote-chori" charge. BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya claimed that Sonia Gandhi's name was added to the electoral rolls of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi's residence during the 1980 revision, with January 1, 1980, as the qualifying date, three years before she was granted citizenship. Malviya stated that this was a clear violation of electoral law. He further claimed her name reappeared in voter lists in 1983, prior to her citizenship approval.

According to Malviya, the electoral rolls for the New Delhi parliamentary constituency were revised with January 1, 1980, as the qualifying date, and during this process, Sonia Gandhi's name was added at serial number 388 in polling station 145. He termed this a violation of the law requiring Indian citizenship for voter registration. Following objections in 1982, her name was removed, but it reappeared in the 1983 revision. Malviya alleged that in this update, Sonia Gandhi was listed at serial number 236 in polling station 140, with January 1, 1983, as the qualifying date, even though she was granted Indian citizenship on April 30, 1983. He said that Sonia Gandhi's name entered the electoral rolls twice without meeting the basic citizenship requirement, first in 1980 as an Italian citizen, and again in 1983, months before she legally became a citizen of India.

Sonia Gandhi, born on December 9, 1946, in Italy’s Luciana village, married Rajiv Gandhi on February 25, 1968. She sought Indian citizenship through registration under Section 5(1)(c) of the Citizenship Act on April 7, 1983, based on her 1968 marriage to Rajiv Gandhi. She gave up her Italian nationality by handing over her Italian passport to the Italian Embassy in New Delhi on April 27, 1983.

The Congress has refuted BJP's claims regarding Sonia Gandhi's voter registration. They alleged BJP used manipulated documents. Responding to the allegations, the Congress' Tariq Anwar told NDTV Sonia Gandhi had not asked for her name to be included in the voter roll, and that it was the poll body officials of the time who did so. Trinamool Congress MP accused Amit Malviya of forgery.

The Supreme Court had settled the citizenship row of Sonia Gandhi in 2001. The court dismissed challenges to her 1999 election from Amethi on the ground that she was not an Indian citizen, reports The Times of India. A bench of then Chief Justice AS Anand, Justice RC Lahoti and Justice Doraiswamy Raju ruled that Sonia Gandhi was "a citizen of India" by virtue of a certificate granted under Section 5(1)(c) of the Citizenship Act, a certificate that has never been cancelled, withdrawn or annulled.