Rahul Gandhi: False Alarm or Bells Tolling for BJP?

Rahul Gandhi Presses Case on Stolen Elections

In his latest Voter Adhikar Yatra launched in Bihar today, Rahul Gandhi reiterated claims that the BJP stole a certain Congress win in the 2024 general elections through what he calls a vote theft or “votechori” in every constituency. His party reckons that the India alliance may have lost 100 seats that they would have otherwise won. Rahul Gandhi may be right. The two big questions are why he chose to highlight the issue of the elections being stolen after more than a year, and why there was no public outrage from voters who feel short-changed for the ruling party stealing an election.

Though Rahul Gandhi has given an explanation during his much-publicised press conference about the delay in raising this issue after so long, as he was collecting evidence against an unhelpful Election Commission of India. The question is, why then did the people of the country not display anger over stolen elections? The main reasons, which have never been discussed, may have something to do with the majoritarian character of the society and that of the BJP. Though numbers do not always stack up in BJP’s favour, as the noisy chattering classes are mostly upper-caste Hindus and party supporters, they create a chimera of doubt about the winnability of non-BJP parties against the BJP. Expectedly, hence, no one really believes in an opposition win or rages against an inefficient BJP government. “Its anti-minority politics serves them socially and electorally,” explained a well-informed political observer.

This reporter went around scores of constituencies in different parts of the country, and visibly BJP had no reason to come back to power in 2024. In Meerut city, where the BJP was looking invincible in April 2024, a month before the poll, a prescient politician associated with the ruling party said, “It is difficult for BJP and its allies to get more than 40 seats from Uttar Pradesh. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is very unpopular. He will sink the party.” No one really believed him. But these dark forebodings for the ruling party came true. In Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, the BJP seemed to be staring at a certain defeat. Despite colossal expenditure by the central government, the ruling party looked uncertain about winning any seat in or around Varanasi.

“Why just Varanasi, the BJP will lose all seats in and around the city,” claimed a university professor, who not long back swore by the PM. For this reporter, this was a shock. Everywhere in Varanasi, the imprint of a potential BJP setback was visible. Near Namo Ghat, named after him, a boatman was scathing. He said he was an MA pass but dared not tell his family back home that he was a boatman, as their hearts would break. He said that there were no jobs in the city or anywhere. “Modi’s policies have destroyed everything. There are no jobs for the young now.” He further accused that all the urban construction projects in the city had gone to Gujaratis—none to people of his state. This allegation was repeated ad nauseam all over the state.

Even in the temple town of Ayodhya, there were similar accusations of favouritism regarding the grant of contracts to people from the western state of Gujarat—without producing the necessary corroboration. It did not seem Varanasi really voted for Modi. His opponent from the Congress was leading after the initial rounds when voting was stopped. No explanations were provided for this stoppage. Once the counting began, the tide had turned in favour of Modi. Little wonder Rai has been, expectedly, echoing the same charges that his leader Rahul has been making—that Congress’s vote was stolen in 2024.

As a reporter who has covered elections from different parts of the country for more than 30 years, it seemed a BJP rout in UP and other states. The "mahaul" that was the touchstone for journalists to draw conclusions on which party was winning or losing was ignored by the new order. As a journalist, I was usually correct in reading the elections. I used the only tools that we journalists have at our disposal—talking to people from different walks of life like lawyers, teachers, cops and the likes. Also useful were the sundry intelligence reports, which cut both ways. However, as news professionals, we got it mostly correct. All this changed once the ruling party began to give precedence to opinion polls, which were used to bend opinions rather than assess them. Some got their prediction right, but they were mostly vague and dodgy about how they drew these conclusions. In many cases, the conclusions did not match with their findings. For instance, they would show that most of the seats were coming into a state from X area, while the final score would be the same, but the seats would come from Y area.

Due to the primacy that the opinion polls enjoyed, professional journalists lost their importance, and instead all kinds of dodgy pollsters came in—mostly propped up by the ruling party. Gaining freedom from journalistic scrutiny, the political party could fudge numbers in the electoral rolls, as brought to the fore by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. He asked a pertinent question: why does BJP not suffer from anti-incumbency like all political parties? Again, Rahul Gandhi alleges that the number of voters ballooned since the last elections. These facts were brought to the notice of the Congress leadership again and again, but for some reason they were chickening out.

In 2017 Gujarat, BJP was facing sure defeat due to the impact of demonetisation on people’s minds and also due to the Patel agitation in the Surat district. Surprisingly, the party lost when its candidates thought they were winning. District collectors, it was alleged, changed the course of the polls. It took great effort on the part of Rahul Gandhi and his advisor, Sam Pitroda, to mollify the enraged Congress workers, but nothing really came out of it—even when a number of election petitions were filed.

Post-2024, Rahul Gandhi has been saying categorically that a sure win was stolen from the Congress party. He has identified 75 seats that should have gone to the INDIA alliance. He is expected to present evidence soon. A year after his loss, why is Rahul Gandhi raising this issue against the Election Commission? Has the bell begun to toll for the NDA government, or has Rahul Gandhi got his numbers wrong again?