Rahul Gandhi has said India’s electoral system suffers from “serious discrepancies” and he pledged to continue challenging its integrity
Rahul Gandhi has said India’s electoral system suffers from “serious discrepancies” and he pledged to continue challenging its integrity
India’s main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, has renewed allegations of irregularities in the country’s electoral process, pledging to challenge its integrity through sustained public mobilisation and, if necessary, legal action.
Speaking to reporters at his official residence in New Delhi on Wednesday, the Congress party chief claimed the system was plagued by “serious discrepancies,” citing internal research conducted by his colleagues. Gandhi, heir to the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty, accused authorities of manipulating voter rolls by adding fake names in the 2024 general election and other recent polls.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which underperformed in the national vote and had to rely on coalition allies to form a government, subsequently won several state elections comfortably. Both the BJP and the Election Commission have strongly denied Gandhi’s rigging accusations — claims that are rare in India, the world’s largest democracy with a population of 1.42 billion.
“We do not want to discredit the election process of India, so we are doing it slowly and deliberately,” Gandhi said, adding that the Congress strategy is to build pressure through public opinion rather than immediate legal confrontation. “We mainly want to challenge the Election Commission through the people but could eventually go to court,” he noted.
When asked whether the opposition alliance could unseat Modi in the 2029 general election, Gandhi replied: “If elections are rigged, no amount of cadre mobilisation will work. The game we are playing is rigged.”
His remarks come ahead of a tightly contested state election in Bihar, scheduled by November. Bihar, a politically influential state currently ruled by a BJP-led alliance, could prove a key battleground. According to a recent VoteVibe survey, the opposition holds a slight edge, largely driven by public dissatisfaction over unemployment.
Gandhi expressed confidence in the party’s prospects: “The Bihar election is looking very close, but we are rising and they are declining.”
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