Rahul Gandhi Alleges India is No Longer a Democracy Under BJP-Led Regime

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday alleged that India was no longer a democracy under the BJP-led regime, accusing the Narendra Modi government of undermining electoral institutions, manipulating the political system and using its financial power to weaken the Opposition. Addressing the two-day Bharat Summit organised by the Telangana government in Hyderabad, Gandhi expressed confidence that the Opposition would defeat Modi and remove the BJP from power. "India is actually no longer a democracy," he said, alleging that the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls had rendered 140 million voters either non-existent or ineligible. Questioning the legitimacy of elections, Gandhi asked how an electoral exercise could be considered fair if such a large number of voters were declared invalid. He claimed that the voters who participated in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections had been subsequently removed from the rolls. Gandhi alleged that India's democratic institutions began to weaken after the BJP came to power in 2014, with the Congress taking nearly a decade to understand the changes in the electoral and political system. "What we discovered, and we have proven without any doubt, is that democracy was destroyed in India in 2014," he said.