On November 7, 2025, Rahul Gandhi, India’s Leader of the Opposition, held a press conference accusing the ruling party and the Election Commission of India (ECI) of orchestrating “wholesale vote theft".

He alleged that “chunav chori" had distorted the 2024 Haryana state election and claimed tens of lakhs of votes were improperly cast. The accusations revived a now-familiar pattern in India’s politics: electoral defeat recast as systemic betrayal, and public scepticism mobilised as a political tool.

The sequence has become predictable — lose an election, allege irregularities, disregard court observations or ECI clarifications, and then craft a narrative aimed especially at younger voters less familiar with procedural details.

Such narratives do not strengthen democracy; they undermine trust in the very institutions that allow India’s vast electorate to vote freely and regularly. For a global audience observing the world’s largest democracy, the shift from evidence-based critique to speculation-based rhetoric is significant.

India’s electoral system — one of the most complex logistical operations in the world — has historically been admired for its ability to conduct peaceful, timely elections involving hundreds of millions of voters.

Yet today its credibility is increasingly questioned not with verified data but with claims rooted in political disappointment. This growing tension between institutional performance and political messaging now frames much of India’s democratic debate.

The Haryana election became the immediate backdrop to these accusations. Rahul Gandhi argued that Congress lost eight constituencies by a combined margin of 22,000 votes, implying deliberate distortion. Narrow margins, however, are neither new nor suspicious. In established democracies—from India to the US to the UK—close contests are common and often decisive.

Haryana’s tight margins affected candidates across parties, with several seats decided by extremely small vote gaps. Nationally, in the 2024 general election, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fell short of an absolute........

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