The Fake Player in Politics

Yuvraj Rahul Gandhi’s political despair is increasing day by day. Due to continuous failures, this despair has turned into extreme pessimism. Now this desperation is beginning to cross all the limits of falsehood. Under the assumption that we cannot survive in politics without lies, the Yuvraj has set out to narrate one lie after another since November 2024 i.e. since the declaration of the Maharashtra Assembly results. His credibility in politics is also decreasing day by day due to such lies.

After the Maharashtra Assembly results were declared, it was natural for Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar and UBT to be shocked. Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar and UBT had all started dreaming of getting power in Maharashtra due to their victory over the Grand Alliance in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha elections. Rahul Gandhi should have realized the changing reality of politics after the people of Haryana defied expectations and gave the Bharatiya Janata Party a majority again. But due to the deliberate neglect of this reality, they were most saddened by the result in Maharashtra.

Due to this disappointment, in December 2024, he blamed the defeat of the Maha Aghadi in Maharashtra on the EVMs. Since there has been a deluge of doubts about the EVMs in the last 10 years, no one took Rahuls’ doubts seriously. So then his advisors advised him to raise suspicion over the increased voting percentage after 5 pm based on the voting figures. Rahul alleged that the voting increased suspiciously by 13-15 percent after 5 pm, while presenting the polling data sheet at a press conference. Any party worker at the booth level who has a basic understanding of how voting is done on polling day and is aware of the general work flow, knows why voting increases after 5 pm.

Approximately 50 percent of the voting takes place between 8 am and 5 pm. And thereafter queues of voters start forming outside the polling stations. In fact, the turnout begins to increase around 3 pm. Before this time, the candidates’ workers start reviewing the areas where the turnout is low. And then, with the voter list, the workers start going door-to-door to ensure that the voters cast their rightful votes. Rahul, under the misplaced excitement that he has made a big revelation, pointed out that the Election Commission had announced 58 percent voting till 5 pm, but in the final figures, the Election Commission declared 66 percent voting.

Rahul expressed doubts and suspicion about this 8 percent voting increase. The Election Commission declares the average voting till 5 pm. All voters who enter the polling station premises till 6 pm are allowed to vote. However, the Election Commission announces a provisional average voter turnout till 5PM.

All voters who enter the polling station premises till 6 pm are allowed to vote. Therefore, there have been incidents of voting going on till 7 or 8 pm in many places. This fact is even known to the local Congress workers. But Rahul Gandhi’s advisors who hold degrees like MBA, software engineer will never know or understand the ground reality of polling. These advisors asked Rahul to raise the question of how the voting increased so much after 5PM and accordingly, Rahul made a series of accusations against the Election Commission about the increased voting, as if he had made a big discovery like Newton.

After the Commission explained the post-5 PM voting, Rahul’s claims were again proven false. After this, he accused the Election Commission and the Bharatiya Janata Party based on the increase in the number of voters in Maharashtra between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Rahul had alleged that one crore voters increased in Maharashtra after the Lok Sabha elections. In reality, it was observed that 40 lakh voters increased in Maharashtra between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

And interesting in 2009, when the Congress-NCP was in power at the Centre and in the state, more than 60 lakh votes had increased in Maharashtra between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. But instead of understanding such facts, Rahul rather enjoys shooting arrows in the dark based on advisor-fed data. Next up, Rahul accused the Election Commission of excluding the names of Congress-supporting voters. For this allegation, cited data from CSDS-Lokniti, an election forecasting organization, as the basis.

The organization had alleged that the voter turnout in Ramtek and Devlali assembly constituencies had decreased by 38 and 36 percent respectively after the Lok Sabha elections. After the Election Commission sent a notice to CSDS Lokneeti co-founder Sanjay Kumar, Sanjay Kumar admitted that he had made the allegation based on incorrect information and unconditionally apologized to the Election Commission. Errors in voter registration, deletion, or address corrections have existed for years, but these are not done to benefit any particular party.

Recently, Rahul made allegations about vote-theft and accused the Election Commission of deliberately excluding the names of Congress supporters. While making this allegation, he mentioned the Rajura assembly constituency in Maharashtra. He alleged that in this constituency, the names of about 7 thousand voters were included before the assembly elections and the Congress candidate was defeated by 3 thousand 54 votes.

BJP MLA from this constituency, Devram Bhongale, showed with evidence that nothing like this happened in this constituency, in fact, the BJP itself suspected that the names of bogus voters would be included before the elections and so a complaint was filed about it. Ironically, Rahul had also alleged voter deletion in the Aland constituency in Karnataka, which Congress still won.

In Aland, they claimed that votes were removed by targeting a strong Congress booth. But if that were the case, would the Congress candidate have won? If it had been removed, wouldn’t the candidate have been defeated? Similarly, in Rajura, where Rahul claimed voter names were added, Congress’s vote count actually increased by 9,000 compared to the last election. Clearly, Rahul did not care to even minimally study the subject before making accusations, thus embarrassing himself with his own claims.

After Rahul alleged that bogus names were included in Rajura constituency, when a journalist asked him why, if he had such strong evidence, he didn’t go to court, Rahul fumbled and gave a laughable response, “Going to court is not my job, the youth will do that”.

 

(Article Pre-Published in Times of India Online – 22 September, 2025) 

Keshav Upadhye, Chief Spokesperson