is-democracy-really-in-danger-in-india

Is democracy really under attack and in danger in India as “feared” by senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. He has consistently been claiming that the constitutional institutions are under continuous threat from the current establishment in the country. He has been accusing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of unleashing investigating agencies like the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax, CBI etc against the political opponents.

 

The latest charge the Leader of Opposition has levelled is about alleged “vote theft”, which his party has been trying to reinforce with a slogan, “vote chor, gaddi chhor” (vote thief, leave the government) across the country.

 

It is apparently amid this backdrop that during an interactive meeting in one of Colombia's universities, Gandhi said democracy was “under attack” in India and the democratic space was shrinking.

 

Gandhi and other opposition parties have cited examples of various investigating agencies going mainly after the opposition leaders while rarely touching those belonging to the ruling dispensation. That, to some extent, is correct.

 

At the same time, whosoever has been investigated and prosecuted by any of these investigating agencies has faced serious charges. There has not been a single case where any opposition leader has been falsely implicated without evidence. It is a separate story whether the accused have been convicted or not at the end, but the cases have always been registered on the basis of strong evidence.

 

It is not the investigating agencies alone, Gandhi also has grievances with the working of the media, the corporate houses and even the country’s judicial system. He has targeted every institution one way or the other from time to time.

 

His latest target has been the Election Commission of India, suggesting that it is because of the “collusion between the BJP and the ECI” that the BJP has been repeatedly winning the provincial and federal elections. He claims that the BJP has been winning against all the “poll predictions”, which is not correct. For example, in the 2024 General Elections, all the pre-election opinion polls and exit polls indicated a clear majority for the BJP, while it fell short of an absolute majority on its own by 30 seats. Had it lost just 20 seats more, the BJP would have been sitting in the opposition today. That is the reason that Rahul’s theory of “election theft” has not many buyers anywhere across the country.

 

Also read: BJP must counter Rahul’s ‘vote theft’ charges seriously

 

Rahul has come with, what he would like everyone to believe, “an explosive” evidence about the “vote theft”. He says that he is yet to come out with more “explosive evidence” that is like “hydrogen bomb”.

 

So far, he has come with “explosive” details about two assembly segments in Karnataka; Mahadevapura and Aland. In Mahadevapura, he claimed, the BJP added more than one lakh bogus votes, while in Aland, he claimed, the BJP deleted 6,000 votes fraudulently.

 

Anyone having a fair idea of how votes are deleted or added, would know that it is done at the grassroots level by the local administration. Officials are deputed for electoral work, but they are always under the direct control of the local/ provincial government. The Election Commission of India has no direct control over this process. If the local/ provincial government does not want to do something, when the election code of conduct is not in place, the ECI can hardly do anything about it.

 

In Karnataka—from where Rahul alleged “electoral roll manipulation”—his own party is in power there. His argument weakens also because while he has been alleging “vote theft” having taken place in Maharashtra or Haryana, he has, so far, not produced any “evidence” from those states.

 

Before resorting to vote theft charges, Rahul and his party, as also some other opposition parties, claimed that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were manipulated in support of the BJP. The party ran a sustained campaign against the EVMs for quite some time. Since it did not find many buyers for the charges, it dropped the idea and switched over to “vote theft”.

 

The party, in fact, faced flak from one of its own alliance partners, the National Conference, whose leader and current Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah blasted the EVM manipulation charges. He said if the BJP had wanted to manipulate the EVMs he would not be the Chief Minister and nobody would even have suspected it. It was probably one of the reasons that the Congress shelved the idea of targeting the EVMs.

 

Rahul’s carefully crafted strategy of targeting the ECI is aimed at creating a perception that the central election authority is “compromised” in favour of the BJP. Had it been so, the BJP would not be losing so badly in Uttar Pradesh, where everyone expected the party to win big in the last General Elections. If it had won from there with manipulations, nobody would have had an iota of doubt.

 

Also read: Set your house in order; suspend hostilities for a while

 

During the UPA-I, the Congress nominated Manohar Singh Gill, former Chief Election Commissioner of India, to the Rajya Sabha and also made him a minister in the central government. But nobody levelled any allegations against Gill or the Congress that there was “some” quid pro quo in this arrangement.

 

Rahul has also been claiming that the democratic space was shrinking in India and the pluralistic ethos of the country was under threat. The current dispensation has been in power for more than 11 years now. There have been no instances or examples of any such thing that would convey any sort of discrimination, victimisation or persecution of the minorities. Yes, isolated and sporadic incidents do take place, but those are just aberrations.

 

The reason that these charges are not sticking at the BJP is that these have not caught any public imagination. For an idea to get accepted, it is important that people identify with it. Not many people in India, rather hardly anyone, believe that the BJP has been “stealing the elections” as there is a lot of evidence to the contrary or that the democratic space is really shrinking in India.

 

Congress in general and Rahul in particular will need to conceive and devise a positive strategy that appeals to people and catches their imagination. The problem with the Congress has been that it has been continuously experimenting with ideas without being able to stick to any of them.

 

It opposed the Ram Janambhoomi movement and the abrogation of Article 370. Today, it is an acknowledged fact that the Congress does not want to be seen to be opposing any of these two issues.

 

Similarly, it abandoned the idea of “opposing and exposing” the EVM manipulation. It will not be surprising if and when it abandons the idea of “vote theft” and the accompanying slogan, “vote chor, gaddi chhor”.

 

It is still acceptable as long as Rahul sticks to such allegations within India, as people understand that certain things are done for political posturing. But when he makes such remarks on foreign shores, he antagonises and alienates many more people back home, than he wins over abroad.

 

Last year also, he made a similar remark that was wide off the mark that the issue in India is whether a Sikh will be allowed to wear his ‘karra’ (bracelet) and turban in India. He faced huge backlash then as well, like he is facing now, over his comment in Colombia that democracy is in danger in India, which indeed it is not.