"How is that election possibly legitimate?": LoP Rahul Gandhi questions voter roll revisions, Maharashtra poll results at Bharat Summit

Referring to nationwide voter roll deletions carried out during revision exercises, Gandhi questioned the legitimacy of past electoral outcomes if millions of registered participants were subsequently classified as non-existent.

"140 million people who voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha election were declared as either non-existent voters or non-voters a few months ago," Gandhi stated. "If the Election Commission has declared 140 million voters illegal non-voters, then how is that election possibly legitimate?"

To illustrate his concerns, the Congress leader pointed to the stark contrast between the 2024 Lok Sabha results and the state Assembly elections held in Maharashtra later that year, where the opposition alliance saw its parliamentary gains reversed.

"We have an example in Maharashtra where we have a national election; our alliance fights, wins the national election. Three months later, we are decimated," Gandhi said. "We start looking into the details, and we find that we get the exact same votes in both elections. 7 million new voters are added in three months, and every single one of those 7 million voters votes for the BJP, and they win the election."

Gandhis remarks come amid an ongoing political confrontation between the opposition and the Election Commission of India (ECI) regarding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and alleged discrepancies in voter turnout data.

While Gandhi and the Congress party have repeatedly demanded machine-readable digital voter lists and accused the poll body of failing to address irregularities, both the Election Commission and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have strongly rejected the allegations.

The ECI has previously dismissed similar claims as baseless and called upon Gandhi to submit formal declarations under election rules rather than making public accusations, while BJP leaders have accused the Leader of the Opposition of attempting to undermine constitutional institutions without verifiable evidence.

Gandhi was speaking at the concluding day of the two-day Bharat Summit 2026 at the HICC Novotel venue in Hyderabad, alongside Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and delegates from around 70 countries.

MP Rahul Gandhi alleged that India's traditional electoral and coalition landscape was upturned in 2014 through massive inflows of money, claiming that "democracy was destroyed in India in 2014."

"In 2014, we witnessed a completely new election, something we've never seen before. Millions and millions and millions of dollars injected into the political system... The electoral system that was used to close fights, coalition, is suddenly upturned, and I would be lying if I said that the opposition was in shock... There was this crisis in Indian politics for a decade. And then suddenly, we discovered what was happening. We discovered it, and we have proven it without any doubt is that democracy was destroyed in India in 2014.", he said.

Earlier, Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Saturday attended and addressed the valedictory session of the Bharat Summit 2026 in Hyderabad alongside Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, stating that "fascists jump out of the woodwork when systems collapse." His address at the HICC Novotel venue came amid protests outside by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) workers and sharp criticism of the summit by BJP leaders.

Addressing the Bharat Summit 2026 in Hyderabad, Gandhi hit out at what he termed "fascists" in business, academia, and politics, asserting that they tend to scream and refuse to listen while the humble majority remains quieter.

"You find people at the head of businesses; you find them in academics, they know it all, and in politics we call them fascists. Fascists tend to scream. They shout, they scream, they don't listen. The majority listens, pays attention, is humble, so the fascists tend to have a louder voice," Gandhi said during his address.

"And historically, the fascists jump out of the woodwork when systems collapse... And for the last decade, the fascists have been running, romping, jumping, shouting, screaming," the Congress MP added. (ANI)