Opinion

Rahul Gandhi’s new bomb fails to explode

Vote chori—with convenient exceptions

September 24, 2026

Rahul Gandhi’s selective election memory

He came like a victor, but left like a whisper!

A suddenly convened press meet addressed by Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha), on Thursday evening turned out to be a damp squib despite his assurance that politics in India would not be the same after it. Other than demanding the “immediate” resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, the Chief Election Commissioner, whom Rahul Gandhi described as the main reason for the successive failures of the Congress Party in all elections since 2014, the scion of the Gandhi clan had nothing new to offer. He also declared that Prime Minister Narendr a Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, whom he described as “Desh Drohis,” would be investigated once the Congress Party comes to power at the Centre. Interestingly, Rahul Gandhi was silent about Electronic Voting Machines at this presser.

The press meet was convened to drive home the “message” that all was not well within the Election Commission of India. “Gyanesh Kumar was appointed by the Prime Minister and Amit Shah to ensure the victory of the BJP in the elections. He was given unlimited powers, and it has to be noted that Gyanesh Kumar was the one who perpetrated the ‘vote chori’ and ‘samvidhan chori’,” alleged Rahul Gandhi.

But he was silent about the fact that the General Elections in 2014, 2019 and 2024 were held under the leadership of three different Chief Election Commissioners (V. S. Sampath, 2012–2015; Sunil Arora, 2018–2021; Rajiv Kumar, 2022–2025). Out of these three, Sampath was appointed by the Congress-led UPA government. Rahul Gandhi also forgot to make it clear that the Election Commissioners are appointed by the President of the country. Gyanesh Kumar, a highly respected IAS officer, was appointed CEC on 19 February 2025 and has not led any of the general elections.

Rahul Gandhi’s ire and doubts throughout the press meet were directed at the absence of any anti-incumbency factor under the Narendra Modi dispensation. “No democracy in the world could function without an anti-incumbency factor. It is impossible for any government not to have any anti-incumbency factor,” he said. The rest of the press conference was full of his hackneyed charges about how the Legislative Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Uttarakhand, etc., were tampered with by the CEC.

The platform from which he addressed the press had an array of photographs of Prime Minister Modi, Home Minister Shah, RSS Sarsanghchalak Dr. Bhagwat, industrialist Gautam Adani and some Union ministers who were labelled as conspirators. Another group of photographs featuring Arnab Goswami, Vivek Agnihotri, Anand Ranganathan and others was displayed under the title “Pawns.”

Interestingly, Rahul Gandhi was silent about the impressive win registered by the Congress-led UDF in Keralam and the shock defeat handed to the DMK by film actor Joseph Vijay in Tamil Nadu. The woes of the Leader of the Opposition, devoid of any worthwhile material other than name-calling, resembled those of a mentally unsound young man who had been denied his toy—an entity by the name of India.

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