Media365
A bad workman always blames his tools,” goes the proverb. In politics, a bad loser blames the umpire. Every defeat has a cause and every cause demands introspection. Yet, instead of asking why voters keep turning away from his party, Rahul Gandhi has chosen to put the Election Commission of India (ECI), once again, in the dock. His latest agitation against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and a demand for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar raises a simple question: Does the Congress have the moral locus standi to lecture anyone on the independence of the poll body?
The Congress’s patronage-loaded record with the ECI is a textbook lesson in how not to treat a constitutional institution. Time and again, those who presided over elections were rewarded after retirement. K V K Sundaram, the second CEC, went on to chair the Law Commission and was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan. R K Trivedi was made Governor of Gujarat and conferred the Padma Bhushan. M S Gill, CEC from 1996 to 2001, entered the Rajya Sabha on a Congress ticket and went on to serve as a minister in the UPA government. Even T N Seshan contested the 1999 Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket. J M Lyngdoh, who served as CEC from 2001 to 2004, joined the Congress after retirement. The line between referee and player was not merely blurred; it was erased.
In the context of the present bogey of “vote deletion”, the Congress’s somersault on bogus voters is striking and the numbers speak for themselves. In August 2018, the party alleged 42 lakh duplicate names in Rajasthan’s rolls; 41.85 lakh names have now been dropped from the SIR draft roll. In September 2018, the top Congress leadership flagged nearly 50 lakh duplicate voters in Andhra Pradesh, while the AICC claimed about 70 lakh wrong entries in Telangana. Today, 44.28 lakh names are under scrutiny in Andhra Pradesh, and 73.39 lakh have been dropped from Telangana’s draft roll. In 2021, Ramesh Chennithala flagged 4.34 lakh bogus or multiple voters in Kerala; the final list now carries 8.57 lakh deletions. Even Jawhar Sircar of the Trinamool Congress spoke of over 90 lakh fake voters in West Bengal.
The pattern is unmistakable. When errors exist, elections are “rigged by fake voters”. When the Commission cleans the rolls, the exercise becomes a “political attack”. Congress cannot demand the surgery and then complain about the scar.
The current protest, in vintage Rahul Gandhi style, rests on falsehoods. The most blatant and the most mischievous is the claim that 13 crore voters have been arbitrarily “deleted”. The breakup tells a very different story: About 2.8 crore dead voters, 3 crore absent or untraceable, 6.3 crore permanently shifted and 1 crore duplicates. Final action follows only after the process of claims, objections and appeals.
There is also a fundamental legal question. Rahul Gandhi promised in November 2025 to provide proof of “vote chori”. Yet on October 12, 2026, he demanded that the government and ECI prove that no such theft occurred. That turns the burden of proof upside down. The elementary principle is that the person making an allegation must substantiate it.
Did the Congress win Karnataka, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh through “vote chori”? Did the UDF sweep Kerala this year on rolls revised through the very SIR he now condemns? Did AAP win Punjab, or did Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) break Tamil Nadu’s Dravidian duopoly through vote theft? Does “vote chori become a conspiracy only when Congress loses, but democracy when Congress wins?
More troubling are reported references by Rahul Gandhi’s “comrade” Prashant Bhushan to “regime change”, and by Neha Bora to inspiration from Bangladesh’s recent turmoil. If these remarks reflect the protest’s objectives, the question is unavoidable: Is the aim to protect democracy or to replace the ballot with street pressure? The ballot, not the barricade, must determine who governs India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi wins elections through dedication to the people. Gas connections, piped water, bank accounts, pucca homes and free rations have reached crores of households, and voters have chosen delivery over drama. The Congress must learn the difference between “vote chori” and “voter rejection”. Instead of remaining in protest mode, it needs to shift to introspection mode. Until it does, Rahul Gandhi will remain the batsman who blames the pitch, the ball and the umpire: Everything except his own batting.
The writer is a Supreme Court lawyer and BJP national spokesperson
