In politics, often, the myth that those in power can get away with anything is persuasively peddled. But when the truth, which usually hides in numbers, comes out, it shows the ugly reality of what we believe to be the ‘normal’ functioning of a democracy. That is exactly what happened when Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition, stood before a packed hall of journalists and party workers, and accused the Election Commission of India of “vote chori.” Election theft.
The data Gandhi presents is precise, almost obsessively so. He speaks of Mahadevapura in Karnataka, of specific booth numbers, of Form 6 being used to flood the electoral rolls with entries that do not appear to be real. He points to voters listed multiple times under slightly altered names. A man registered in Maharashtra and again in Karnataka. A house that appears to house sixty voters. A brewery that somehow becomes a place of residence. Parent names written as “Xyz Xyz.” Photographs so degraded that they resemble postage stamps from the 1960s. Each detail on its own could be dismissed as a clerical error. But Gandhi’s case is built not on exception, but on a clear pattern.
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