Authoritarianism is no longer a creeping threat in India; it is in full stride. For over a decade, the BJP-led NDA government under Narendra Modi has bent the nation’s institutions to its will. The Election Commission (EDI) meant to be the impartial guardian of democracy now appears increasingly complicit in the very electoral malpractice it is sworn to prevent.

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has, for years, warned of the Centre’s heavy-handed pressure on election officials. Recently, he produced detailed evidence that exposes shocking loopholes in India’s voting process revelations that suggest industrial-scale vote theft.

The pattern is hard to ignore. After losing the Lok Sabha elections in Haryana and Maharashtra, the BJP returned to win the Assembly polls in those states just months later. In Maharashtra, over 6.5 million votes were recorded in a two-hour window after polls officially closed mathematically implausible. The Election Commission offered no explanation.

The Congress party’s forensic examination of recent polls reveals disturbing trends: duplicate voters, false addresses, bulk registrations at single homes, and misused voter applications. In Bengaluru’s Mahadevapura constituency alone, over one lakh fraudulent entries were identified. They were enough to swing the seat, and with it, the BJP’s narrow 32,000-vote win in Bengaluru Central in 2024. Nationally, more than 25 seats were won by margins smaller than this threshold.

These are not isolated anomalies. Across India, voter rolls list people with no valid address, households with over a hundred registered voters, and individuals registered in multiple states. The Election Commission refuses to release this data in digital form, perhaps fearing what a proper audit might uncover.

The rot extends beyond vote lists. CCTV footage has been withheld, VVPAT audits stonewalled, and procedural irregularities brushed aside. This is how public trust in elections is hollowed out from within.

Having tasted the fruits of manipulated victories, the BJP now seeks to entrench itself through constitutional engineering. Its “One Nation One Election” proposal is less about efficiency and more about locking in a power advantage.

In Bihar, where Assembly polls loom, the party stands accused of plotting to remove over 6.5 million voters under the pretext of roll revision. The Supreme Court has had to compel the Election Commission to account for this purge.

This is not mere political gamesmanship. It is the systematic dismantling of the world’s largest democracy. If the ruling party believes it can win only by subverting the rules, then India’s elections are no longer free and no longer fair. The Congress Party has vowed to confront this theft with hard evidence. The fight is no longer for power alone; it is for the survival of the democratic process itself.

(The writer is the Chairman of Rajiv Gandhi Panchayati Raj Sanghatan, Telangana)