Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is on an aggressive campaign to prove his claims that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not popularly elected, but by electoral manipulations only. He goes to the extent of saying it unequivocally that the 2024 General Elections, in which Modi was re-elected for the third consecutive term, were “stolen”. This was Rahul’s third consecutive defeat in the General Elections, besides so many in the state elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has been dismissive of his allegations, mostly ignoring these. This is a grave mistake the BJP is committing. The BJP apparently thinks that Gandhi has been targeting the Election Commission of India and the party should not intervene. The BJP would be right if it was really between the Congress and the ECI. It is actually between the BJP and the Congress. The assault has been carefully crafted by the Congress’ think-tank to undermine the credibility of the Election Commission of India so that it will be easy to always question its fairness and consequently the electoral results.
There is a consistent pattern in the Congress game plan of targeting the ECI. It actually wants to target Prime Minister Modi, saying that he gets elected by electoral manipulations and not because of his own charisma and popularity. Modi, even after 11 years of being the Prime Minister, has not lost his popularity. He continues to be the most popular leader of the country right now and has not only been getting elected himself, but also leading his party to victories in the state elections as well.
The Congress has, so far, not managed to put up an effective challenge to Modi. Besides his own popularity, it is the failure of the Congress to present a strong and powerful challenge to him that has been helping Modi to win quite frequently.
More than the BJP, Rahul by trying to question the credibility of the elections, has managed to avoid any chances of any introspection within the party about recurring and repetitive defeats. He probably must be the only leader in the world who has managed to retain the hold on the party despite repetitive defeats in elections whether in the General Elections or the state elections.
By suggesting that the BJP and Modi have been winning elections fraudulently, he conveniently bails himself out from the responsibility that he should own as anyone in his position would be doing. Not that there is anyone in the Congress who can question his competence to win the elections, he wants to appear credible that he is not losing elections, but the BJP is winning by fraud.
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The BJP appears to be complacent under the misplaced belief that nobody takes Rahul seriously. May be that is partially correct, but the way he is eroding and undermining the credibility of the Election Commission of India is quite dangerous for the country. Rahul has the audacity of accusing the BJP of attacking the Constitution, while in reality he is doing it himself by continuously levelling vague allegations against the ECI, whose credibility, neutrality and impartiality has been acknowledged the world over.
Rahul has “provided” the “proof” of “voter frauds” in two assembly segments in Karnataka, a state ruled by the Congress since 2023. Votes are added to, and deleted from the electoral rolls by the local officials who are under direct control of the state government and not the Election Commission of India. There is always a possibility of marginal errors in any process. Quoting such errors in two assembly segments, from a state ruled by his own party, Rahul is trying to malign the entire electoral system and process of the country.
Earlier, Rahul, the Congress and some other opposition parties would allege that the elections were manipulated through the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). As the allegations did not sound credible with Congress’ own ally the National Conference questioning its stand, the party (Congress) abandoned the idea (of questioning the EVMs) and switched over to the “electoral rolls manipulations”.
Not that people will take Rahul at face value, in the age of social media, narratives don’t take much time to build up. Particularly when there are also forces, which control the algorithms with a potential of generating mass hysteria on anything and everything, the BJP as the largest political party in the country and also in power has the responsibility to counter it before it is too late.
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Rahul’s remarks that the Generation-Z in India will protect the Constitution and prevent vote theft need to be viewed in that context. His remarks were obviously with reference to the Gen-Z rebellion in Nepal, which dethroned the government there.
India certainly is not Nepal. Besides, the roots of democracy are quite deep and strong here. Not that there is any chance of mass uprising like Nepal, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka taking place in India. But letting Rahul have a free run with his repetitively vague allegations first about EVM manipulation, then Constitution in danger and now voter theft, should be countered logically and argumentatively.
May be then Rahul focuses on his own priorities like taking care of the organisation particularly in states like Haryana, Kerala, Assam and West Bengal. The latter three are scheduled to go for elections next year. Even in Bihar the party is not able to work out a proper strategy with its alliance partner, the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad Yadav.
If Rahul thinks that he can win elections by merely accusing the BJP of attacking the Constitution, stealing the votes or manipulating the EVMs, he is badly mistaken. He will need convincing arguments, which he has not been able to provide so far. Rhetoric does not last long either, that too when you do not have a strong party organisation to back it up.
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