With No Valid Answer, BJP Resorts to Condescension to Rebut Rahul Gandhi's Article

This is the final part of a two-part series on Rahul Gandhi’s claims on the Maharashtra elections. Read the first here.

To destroy Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s allegation of vote rigging in Maharashtra, Bharatiya Janata Party got a shot-gun fired by none other than Devendra Fadnavis, the chief minister of the state. The degree of consternation that Rahul Gandhi’s data may have created in the BJP can be judged from the fact that Fadnavis starts his article in the Indian Express – the same outlet which published Gandhi’s piece – with an untruth. “On the morning of June 7, returning from Gadchiroli to Nagpur, journalists brought to my attention an article written by Shri Rahul Gandhi.” 

Not only was Fadnavis able to read Gandhi’s article, but he was able to write a 2,200 word rebuttal dripping with condescension, alert the Indian Express that it was on the way, and get it to the paper the same evening before it was put to bed. Gadchiroli is 171 kilometres from Nagpur, and according to Google the minimum time it takes to drive from one town to the other is 3 hours and 16 minutes. If he had travelled by helicopter, it would have cut the time down by at most an hour. So Fadnavis could not possibly have arrived at the state guest house before mid-afternoon. 

Writing such a long and detailed article in the little time that remained would have been a creditable achievement even for a professional journalist reporting from a war front. For the chief minister of a state, who is not used to writing at express train speed, and would, in any case, have had a host of people waiting to meet him at Nagpur, it would have been next to impossible. The conclusion is therefore inescapable. This article was not written by Fadnavis, but by the BJP’s propaganda machine, for him to feed to the press. 

Coming to Fadnavis’ response, his rebuttal is fully convincing on only one of the five issues raised by Gandhi. It is perfectly possible for there to be a disproportionate rise in the number of votes cast during the last hour of voting, which is from 5 to 6 pm on election day. This happens in part because a large number of voters are only able to come after working hours (most shops, delivery agencies and small scale enterprises do not shut down on election day), and because those in the queue before 6 pm are able to vote regardless of the length of the queue. This takes the actual closing time to well after that hour. 

But Fadnavis’ attempt to rebut two other strong indicators of vote rigging fall flat on their face. 

The first is his flippant dismissal of the fact that more voters were added to the electoral rolls in five months last year than had been added in the previous five years. To explain this huge discrepancy Fadnavis has used the increase in the number of persons who turned up to vote not the increase in the number who, by virtue of attaining adulthood, were entitled to vote. Fadnavis’ condescending dismissal of this is as follows: “If you want the data on how the number of voters increased in between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, here it is: In 2004, 5 per cent more in the Assembly elections than in the Lok Sabha polls. In 2009, 4 per cent more; in 2014, 3 per cent more; in 2019, 1 per cent more; and in 2024, 4 per cent more. So again, nothing new happened in 2024.”

It takes only a moment to see that what Fadnavis is quoting is the voter turnout and not the voters on the electoral roll. For the latter to have fluctuated so erratically, the number of Maharashtrian women who became pregnant 18 years earlier would have had to fluctuate in a similar manner. This is a manifest, biological absurdity. For Fadnavis to have put it up as a counter argument to Gandhi reflects the contempt in which he holds his readers. 

For those who still believe that it is impossible for the chief minister of the second largest and by far richest state in the country to mislead his people, here are the figures for the increase in the size of the electorate between the Lok Sabha and assembly elections in  Maharashtra in 2019 and 2024:

In 2019 the electorate grew by 11.61 lakhs between the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. According to the Election Commission, during the same period of 2024, it has grown to almost 40 lakhs – nearly four times more, and that too at a time when the average family size in India has been declining because couples have been having fewer children for some time. 

Further comment on Fadnavis’ rebuttal of Gandhi is superfluous, but it is necessary to point out that the Maharashtra chief minister has steered clear of the most important issue Gandhi has raised. ‘How has the electorate in Maharashtra exceeded the entire adult population of the state?’ In November 2019 the Union government’s National Commission on Population had projected that in 2024 the adult population of Maharashtra would be about 9.5 crores. But the voters list in 2024 had 9.7 crore names. 

How has the Election Commission made such a huge blunder? The answer to this question was given, albeit indirectly, by the outgoing Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar in his farewell speech. It is that the preparations for a general election require the EC to mobilise more than four million workers (karyakartas), and because of their familiarity with the languages and customs of their people these karyakartas are necessarily drawn from the same state. So if the ruling party requires them to follow its directives, and the Election Commissioners are also the nominees of the same parties, the karykartas have no option but  to follow orders, no matter how outrageous these are. 

Fadnavis has condescended outrageously to Rahul Gandhi in the letter that I have described above. But in one brief paragraph he has gone beyond condescension to insult – not only of his, but the entire country’s intelligence. Here is what you have written: “From 1950 until a new law was enacted, your Congress government directly appointed the Chief Election Commissioner! Out of 26 commissioners to date, 25 were directly appointed by the central government. For the first time, the Honourable Modi ji established a committee that includes the Leader of the Opposition or the leader of the largest political party. But it seems you do not approve of this step, which strengthens democracy and was a principle never followed during your time.” 

Fadnavis knows perfectly well that the obeisance to democracy that he is making is totally fake. He knows perfectly well that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has never hesitated to bend, amend or flout any law that stands as an obstacle to his wishes and to the goal of absolute dominance of the political system that he has set himself. If he does not, then he should try making even one half-way critical remark about anything that he has done or not done and see how far down, and how rapidly he slips down the greasy pole of his estimation. 

Fadnavis should know that democracy is not created by articles inscribed in a Constitution. If that were so then Britain is still not a democracy but a monarchy. Democracy  is the product of a yearning  in the people of a country – a yearning  for freedom and for equality before the law. The spirit this generates had existed throughout our country when the 25 Chief Election Commissioners you refer to had been appointed. So none before Modi had thought it necessary to enshrine it in a law. 

 It was only in 2023, after eight years of Modi’s rule, when large sections of the people of India felt that their freedoms were under threat, that they went to the Supreme Court for a directive on how future Election Commissions should be constituted. That directive required the government to set up a three-member panel consisting of the prime minister, the leader of the opposition and the Chief Justice of India, to select the next Election Commissioners. It is your party and your prime minister who have violated this directive by replacing the Chief Justice with a minister of the prime minister’s choice, thus creating a permanent 2-to-1 majority for whatever party rules India when it comes to the choice of the chief election commissioner and his subordinates. 

And after all this, the Maharashtra chief minister describes his party as a servant of democracy.

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