Hit and Run

Rahul Gandhi has turned the charge of alleged ‘vote theft’ into his newest political prop. In recent weeks the Congress Leader of Opposition has accused the Election Commission with increasing stridency of colluding with the interests of the ruling BJP, while alleging mass deletion of voters in Karnataka, and hinting at conspiracies in Maharashtra. His claims were delivered with righteous fury at a press conference, amplified through social media and then abandoned before it can be tested in Parliament or a court of law.

This is a consistent method in Gandhi’s playbook: make a spectacle, stoke suspicion, and slip away from responsibility. At his latest press conference, Gandhi promised more revelations in the coming months, speaking as though Indian democracy itself had been captured. Yet when asked whether he would take his allegations to the judiciary, he airily dismissed the suggestion as not his responsibility. Instead, he cast himself as merely a messenger passing along what citizens and even supposed insiders from the Election Commission had told him.

The Election Commission has not exactly stayed silent. It has issued detailed rebuttals to Gandhi, pointing out that voter rolls cannot be tampered with online and that past attempts at manipulation were caught and investigated by the authorities themselves. Far from shielding wrongdoers, the commission has acted against them. Last month it even challenged Gandhi to back his charges through a sworn affidavit or withdraw them altogether. He refused.

The implications of Rahul’s antics extend beyond India’s borders. To outside observers, the picture Gandhi paints is that of a democracy on life support, its elections rigged. Western governments and media outlets, eager to see evidence of democratic decline in India, seize upon such claims. The damage is not that the allegations are true but that they are incessantly repeated in Goebbelsian fashion by someone who aspires to lead the country. In the battle for perception, Gandhi is irresponsibly lending credibility to a false narrative that India’s electoral system is broken.

Most voters are unlikely to wade through affidavits or legal clarifications. What sticks is the accusation, not the rebuttal. A slogan repeated often enough can harden into belief. By refusing to pursue formal remedies, he shifts the burden of proof onto the EC, forcing it to disprove rumours rather than the accuser proving them.

Serious politicians test their claims in Parliament, in courts, or through evidence. Gandhi instead prefers to cultivate grievance without closure. India deserves a strong opposition is vital to any democracy, but it must be grounded in facts and a willingness to engage with the very institutions it claims to defend. Gandhi’s brand of politics, high on drama, low on responsibility, undermines that project.

He has become less a challenger to power than a provocateur thriving on distrust. His politics of evasion may earn headlines, but they corrode the democratic fabric he professes to champion. Far from saving democracy, he diminishes it daily.