Rahul Gandhi Points to 'Industrial-Scale Rigging', Alleges EC Role in Maharashtra Assembly Polls
New Delhi: Pointing out several anomalies in the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections, in which the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance registered an unprecedented victory, leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that what went on in the polls was not “small-scale cheating” but an “industrial-scale rigging”.
The Election Commission has called these allegations unsubstantiated.
Although Gandhi has made such insinuations in different occasions after the Maharashtra assembly polls, he published his detailed op-ed in the Indian Express on June 7, 2025, listing out what he thought was an insidious plan by the ruling BJP to capture “our national institutions”. He went on to say that the upcoming Bihar elections will also likely be “rigged” in a manner similar to Maharashtra.
“How to steal an election? Maharashtra assembly elections in 2024 were a blueprint for rigging democracy. My article shows how this happened, step by step,” Gandhi said on X, while publishing his article.
How to steal an election?
Maharashtra assembly elections in 2024 were a blueprint for rigging democracy.
My article shows how this happened, step by step:
Step 1: Rig the panel for appointing the Election Commission
Step 2: Add fake voters to the roll
Step 3: Inflate voter… pic.twitter.com/ntCwtPVXTu— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 7, 2025
“It’s not hard to see why the BJP was so desperate in Maharashtra. But rigging is like match-fixing – the side that cheats might win the game, but damages institutions and destroys public faith in the result,” he went on to say, urging people to “judge for themselves” and “demand answers”.
“The match-fixing of Maharashtra will come to Bihar next, and then anywhere the BJP is losing. Match-fixed elections are a poison for any democracy,” he claimed.
On June 7, 2025, Gandhi wrote in his article that the capture of Indian elections became evident when the Union government passed the 2023 Election Commissioners Appointment Act that replaced the Chief Justice of India, “a neutral arbiter”, with the union home minister to select the election commissioners. He said that with the CJI gone from the panel, the third member who is the LoP, can “always be outvoted” by a 2:1 majority in the selection process of election commissioners.
“Ask yourself, why would someone go out of their way to remove a neutral arbiter in an important institution? To ask the question is to know the answer,” he said.
Then, he elaborated on why he thought the Maharashtra elections were a “desperate” attempt by the BJP to rig the elections, after facing defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections earlier.
He quoted the ECI data to say that between the Lok Sabha and Maharashtra assembly polls in the same year, the number of voters surprisingly increased by 41 lakhs – “in just five months” – even though the last five years had seen an increase of only 31 lakh electors.
He then alleged that the polling turnout increased by an unprecedented 7.83 percentage points – equivalent to almost 76 lakh voters – after 5 pm on the polling day, according to ECI’s own data. He compared similar figures from 2009 onwards when the final turnout was only marginally different from the provisional turnout at 5 pm.
“There are yet more anomalies. There are about 1 lakh booths in Maharashtra, but most added voters were targeted in only about 12,000 booths across 85 constituencies in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had performed poorly in the last Lok Sabha elections. That’s an average of over 600 voters at each booth after 5 pm,” he said.
“The EC described the sharp increase in voters as “a welcome trend in participation of youth”. Apparently, the welcome trend was restricted to 12,000 booths and not the remaining 88,000. This would be an amusing joke, if it were not tragic,” he said.
“One such seat – Kamthi – serves as a typical case study,” he said. He pointed out that although the Congress roughly secured its traditional votes – around 1.35 lakh votes – in both the Lok Sabha and assembly polls In the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Kanthi, the BJP’s share jumped from its usual 1.19 lakh in Lok Sabha polls to 1.75 lakh votes in the assembly polls – a spike of 56,000.
“This jump came from the bank of 35,000 new voters added in Kamthi between the two elections. It appears almost all voters who had not voted in the Lok Sabha and almost all the 35,000 new additions were magnetically drawn to the BJP. It is not hard to discern the lotus shape of the magnet,” he said.
Gandhi added that in spite of such anomalies, the ECI has only dismissed such concerns and circumstantial evidence raised by the opposition, either with “silence” or “aggression”.
Gandhi’s strong public remarks raising questions on the fairness of India’s election process may snowball into yet another flashpoint between the opposition and the union government. Although many in the opposition ranks have raised such concerns, this may be the first time when the LoP has officially recorded his dissent against not only the Centre but also alleged partisanship of the ECI.
EC's response
The EC has released a "point-wise rebuttal", claiming it is based on facts.
"The Election Commission had brought out all these facts in its reply to INC on 24th December 2024 itself which is available on ECI’s website. It appears that all these facts are completely being ignored while raising such issues again and again..." it has claimed.
It has also said that "misinformation" is disrespectful to the law.
"Any misinformation being spread, by anyone, is not only a sign of disrespect towards Law, but also brings disrepute to the thousands of representatives appointed by their own political party and demotivates lakhs of election staff who work untiringly and transparently during elections. After any unfavourable verdict by the voters, trying to defame the Election Commission by saying that it is compromised, is completely absurd," it said.
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