Democracy on the Brink, Unveiling the so called electoral heist in India
India has just been shaken by a political earthquake. Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition has made a fantastic claim. According to him, the general election held in 2024 was not a free and fair democratic election. He rather terms it as a measured loot, a well planned theft by the government, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). Gandhi accuses the Election Commission of India (ECI), the same institution which is expected to protect votes, to have been involved in this fraud directly.
Such a rebuke goes to the core of being a country that boasts of being the largest democracy in the world. The book opens up in the legislative constituency called Mahadevapura located in Bangalore central parliamentary seat. In this location, the BJP got by with a close victory which was approximately 32,000 votes. But the Congress party led by Gandhi gives evidence of more than 100,000 votes of a bogus nature or vote manipulated in the same locality. This has the grim implication that the will of the people was subverted. It was produced, they say, not required. This has made the popularity of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi fall drastically after an operation dubbed as Operation Sindoor by the sources, and people are increasingly losing their trust.
The Blueprint of a stolen election
According to the inquiry by the Congress party, it has been alleged that there is a system in place on how the election was rigged. These identify five obvious pillars of deception. It was not a set of little errors, it was a conscious plan to overthrow the Volant.
To start with, there was duplication of entries in the voting. It was identified that nearly 12,000 cases of registering people vote more than once took place. Different polling booths in Mahadevapura had some of the names listed.
Indeed, proceeds of some were logged in other states such as Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. This is a farce of the principle of one person, one vote.
Second, there were more than 40,000 fake or bogus addresses discovered in the investigation. Numerous voter IDs were tied to addresses with the only number being 0 or to non-existent buildings. In the other cases, the fields with the last names of the father or the mother filled were filled with gibberish. Such anonymous identities could be a virtual phantom army of fictional voters, and thus deployed to swing an election.
And thirdly there were the mass voters at the same address. This is terrifying evidence. In one instance there was a one room dwelling, where there were 80 voters. In another there were 68 voters names on a brewery, which was not house property. This is an indicator of the willful padding of voter rolls in certain districts in favor of a given party.
Moreover, there were more than 4,100 voter IDs where the number of tampered and missing photographs was discovered. Most of the photos were blurred, not at all identifiable or just nonexistent. This eliminates one of the most important checks in the polling booth and someone can come and cast a vote in the name of another.
Lastly, the probe showed high levels of the abuse of Form 6. This is one of the forms that are directed to new and young voters. Instead, it was however reported to be used to cheat almost 34,000 people aged between 60 and 90 in registering. These are some of the same aged citizens who had been found to have voted two times in two different booths. This was no mistake; it was a politically masterminded falsification of the voter list.
A Player Acting as an Umpire A member of one side in the field
The most damning accusation Rahul Gandhi throws at the Election Commission of India probably pertains to the fact that the issue used to be avoided. The ECI is expected to be impartial referee. Nonetheless, Gandhi blames it as an accomplice in the fraud. He also asserts that the ECI sauntered to implement a cover up against the crime.
He said the Commission erased digital voter rolls or had refused to supply them to audit. It is also said to have withheld CCTV station records that would have proved visual evidence of any law breaking. On request to submit electronic records (to be verified), the ECI obstructed the demands. The conduct makes the country’s electoral watchdog a guard dog to the ruling party. These official claims have been supported by the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah, who has called it a deep institutional betrayal by the ECI.
In its defense, the BJP or the ECI has not been responsive to the evidence. They have instead tried an attempt at intimidation and distraction. The ECI has demanded Rahul Gandhi to name officials in court swearing which has been regarded as a tactic meant to gag the Congress party leader. The BJP leaders have written off this massive amount of evidence by referring to it as politics, political theatrics. This reaction implies the use of institutional authority, never the confidence of the populace.
The issue, Gandhi explains, is not averted to a single constituency. Mahadevapura is only the sketch. The trend of suspicious results has been witnessed at a national level as well. Examples of such phenomenon are seen in states such as Maharashtra, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh where the results of elections have gone completely against all the major poll trends and analysis as to how people are going to vote. This is an indication of systematic manipulation across the country. This is due to the fear that elections in the state of Bihar which are barely months away will be along the same script as they are rigged through the use of state machinery and rigged voter rolls to give a predetermined result.
Democracy in India has grown to its crossroad. It seems the government is losing true support of the people, and it is even purported to stick to security agencies, capturing of institutions, and electoral cheating to cling on to power.
As the world watches, with a caption of India being a vibrant democracy, there is a darker reality which is taking place. The resistance is not having the true fight, it is not being defeated but rather is being annihilated.
Rahul Gandhi has put up evidence that he termed as being of the forensic level. Provided such allegations hold water, what we have is a silent coup in India. This instance needs to be a turning point to enable the nation to restore its democratic soul. The courts will have to intervene and instruct an independent investigation. The civil society should organize and hold people accountable. The international community should not be blinded by the diplomatic niceties and see the democratic emergency that is taking place. Until such time when this so called fraud is uncovered and rescinded, the next election in India will not be a democratic process it will be a ceremony to legitimize an authoritarian government. Indian people have been robbed of their sovereignty and the struggle to recover it has only started.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are exclusively those of the author and do not reflect the official stance, policies, or perspectives of the Platform.
