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The opposition parties led by the Congress have already expressed “no confidence” in the Election Commission of India. The Congress has finally come to the point where it has outrightly rejected the outcome of the 2024 General Elections, saying these were “rigged”.

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera went to the extent of suggesting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not deserve to hold the position he is holding right now, as, according to him, he has won his election with the “booster dose” of fake votes. He also went to the extent of demanding that the 2024 General Elections should be nullified and cancelled, implying that the current Lok Sabha should be dissolved.

It has taken the Congress about a year to reject the elections after “realising” that these were “rigged”. But the same Congress at the time of declaration of the results described the outcome of these elections as a “victory” for the Congress and a defeat for the BJP, although the Congress won just 99 of the 542 seats, while the BJP won 240 seats.

Till the recent past, the Congress leaders, right from the president Mallikarjun Kharge downwards, would say that had the opposition alliance won 20-25 seats more, it would have formed the government. The opposition block, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) won 232 seats, while the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance won 293 seats, a difference of 61 seats.

Congress leaders claiming that had the opposition won 20-25 seats more they would have formed the government suggests that they would have “lured” some of the NDA allies to their side and prevented Narendra Modi from becoming the Prime Minister for the third time in a row. That obviously was wishful thinking, which did not happen. And had that happened, the elections would have been “fair” and not fraud, as they are being touted now.

Modi became the Prime Minister once again and the Congress remained confined to the opposition benches. The saving grace for the Congress, however, was that it managed to get the position of the ‘Leader of the Opposition’ after 10 years. In the previous two General Elections, the party had been reduced to 44 and 52 seats, respectively, making it on both occasions ineligible to qualify for getting the position of Leader of Opposition.

Congress has repeatedly questioned the fairness of elections. First, the party claimed that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were being manipulated and that is why the BJP was winning the elections repeatedly. For about a year, the party carried out a vigorous campaign against the EVMs even quoting the examples of the United States and some other western democracies, which are using paper ballots and not the EVMs. Once the party realised that there were not many buyers for the EVM fraud theory, it shifted the focus to the “electoral rolls” manipulation.

The party started its campaign with Haryana and Maharashtra assembly election results. The party claimed that it was made to lose the two states by manipulations. In the case of Haryana, it did not come out with any details, as even its own state leadership knew the reasons for the defeat, which definitely were not due to any manipulation by the BJP, but its own fratricidal fights.

In Maharashtra, the party cited the different results of the General Elections and the assembly elections as the reason for its suspicion about the “electoral fraud”. In the 2024 General Elections, the opposition alliance in Maharashtra, of which the Congress was a part, won 31 of the 48 parliamentary seats. However, in the ‘legislative assembly’ elections, which were held in November 2024, just six months after the parliamentary elections, the opposition alliance won just 49 of the 288 segments. 

It was mainly the Congress, which did not accept the results, saying these were manipulated, as it claimed there could not be such a huge difference between the outcome of the parliamentary and the assembly elections within a span of six months. Gandhi claimed that “one crore” extra voters were added to the Maharashtra voter list during this period of six months between parliamentary and the assembly elections, a claim that has not been verified so far.

Also read: Pawar claims '160-seat deal' offered before Maharashtra elections

There are several such instances where the parliamentary and assembly elections have thrown opposite results. Like in 2014 and 2019 General Elections, the Aam Aadmi Party was completely wiped out of Delhi, losing all the seven parliamentary constituencies in the national capital. In the assembly elections, which were held about eight months later, the AAP won sweeping victories on both the occasions. In 2015 assembly elections, it won 67 of the 70 assembly segments and in 2020 it won 62 of the 70 assembly segments. Nobody questioned the electoral outcome.

Now, in order to prove his point that the elections in India are being manipulated and won through fraud, Rahul Gandhi chose Mahadevapura, an assembly segment falling under Bengaluru Central parliamentary constituency in Karnataka and not any constituency in Maharashtra, where he claims electoral fraud took place.

He claimed that of over six lakh voters in the Mahadevapura assembly segment, over one lakh were “fake”, giving details of “bulk voters” with single address or multiple votes of a single person and also false declarations about first-time voters. The Election Commission of India has asked him to file an affidavit to challenge the authenticity of all such votes, which is the standard procedure. Gandhi has refused to do so.

Assuming that there were as many discrepancies as Gandhi claimed in the Mahadevapura assembly segment, but should one “single” assembly segment be taken as “the representative” case for all the 4,121 assembly segments across the country and assume that similar discrepancies must be prevailing everywhere in the country?

Even in Mahadevapura assembly segment, some newspapers have reported that the addresses where bulk voters were shown had actually many people residing there, as these were “paying guest” facilities and used by migrant and gig workers. The newspaper also said that only a few votes, in single digits, were cast from these addresses.

There is no doubt that the opposition parties, mainly the Congress, have an agenda to discredit the Prime Minister and build up a perception that he did not get elected through fair elections. Something like what Donald Trump claimed in 2020 after losing the elections that these were stolen. Rahul Gandhi also claims that the 2024 General Elections were stolen.

This also reminds of the anti-government protests in the neighbouring Bangladesh, where the opposition accused the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of getting elected by electoral frauds leading to violence across the country and eventually dislodging the Hasina government. The scripts in both the cases read so similar and so does their execution in the two countries.

Surprisingly, even the parties like the Trinamool Congress and the DMK, both of which have won both the parliamentary and state assembly elections repeatedly in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, respectively, are also accusing the BJP and the Election Commission of India of having manipulated the elections in favour of the BJP.

If the opposition parties really do not have any faith in the Election Commission of India, shouldn’t their members resign en bloc? The Congress has already demanded nullifying of the 2024 General Elections. Let it make a beginning by resigning from all the seats it won. That really can be a great challenge to the BJP and will also make the Congress charges sound credible.