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14-08-2025
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI: Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said India’s electoral system suffers from “serious discrepancies” and he pledged to continue challenging its integrity through public mobilization and potentially the courts.
Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that controls the main opposition Congress party, last week 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, which performed below expectations in the national vote and had to rely on allies to form a government, went on to win several state elections with relative ease.
The BJP and the Election Commission have both denied the rigging charges, which are rare in the world’s most populous democracy of 1.42 billion people.
“There are serious discrepancies in the election system, and we will diligently keep exposing them,” Gandhi told a group of reporters citing research conducted by Congress party colleagues. However, he said he aimed to preserve public trust in democratic institutions.
“We do not want to discredit the election process of India, so we are doing it slowly and deliberately,” he said at his official bungalow in central Delhi, where portraits of his father and grandmother both former prime ministers hung from the walls.
Gandhi said the party’s strategy was focused on building public pressure. “We mainly want to challenge the Election Commission through the people but could eventually go to court.”
“If elections are rigged, no amount of cadre mobilization will work. The game we are playing is rigged,” Gandhi said, when asked by Reuters if the opposition alliance could oust Modi in the next national election in 2029.
His comments come ahead of a closely contested state election in Bihar.
“The Bihar election is looking very close, but we are rising and they are declining,” he said.
Bihar, one of India’s most politically important states, goes to polls by November. It is ruled by an alliance of Modi’s party but according to a recent survey by the VoteVibe agency, the opposition has an edge largely because of a lack of jobs.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is navigating one of the most challenging stretches of his 11 years in office. A contentious ceasefire with archenemy Pakistan, renewed scrutiny over his age and a diplomatic chill with the United States despite much-publicized rapport with President Donald Trump have converged to test his leadership like never before.
While he needs to deal with these headwinds, Modi also has to answer opposition charges of vote-rigging in the 2024 general election. The challenges are coming to a head just before a difficult electoral battle in Bihar, one of India’s most politically significant states.
A defeat in the vote to the state assembly would not affect Modi’s position in the national parliament, but it would be a hammer blow to the reputation of a leader who has maintained a vice-like grip on power since he was elected prime minister over a decade ago.
This week, Trump’s administration announced a total 50% tariff on imports from India, among the highest of any country in the world, throwing the bilateral relationship into deep disarray. Yet, until just six months ago, Trump and Modi were exchanging bear hugs and describing each other as close friends.
“The Indo-US relation sort of revolved around the personalities of Donald Trump and Narendra Modi,” New Delhi-based political commentator Arati Jerath said.
