The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, made headlines in Maharashtra newspapers this week by raising the issue of additions made in the state's voter list before the assembly polls that happened in November of 2024. Rahul Gandhi insisted in his speech that he was not levelling any allegations but only raising questions and doubts about the latest voter list, which, he claimed, had increased by over 70 lakh voter names. Rahul sounded sensational during his speech in the Lok Sabha and gave the media a new issue to discuss. However, the EC had come out earlier with a clarification that the number Rahul Gandhi was quoting was inflated by 21 lakh. What is interesting is the fact that just a few days ago, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief, Raj Thackeray, too, had raised questions about the authenticity of the poll process during the assembly polls and cast some doubts over how the voting increased so suddenly. The questions now being raised in political circles are about whether such allegations, or questioning the poll process in any state, would really help the cause of the political party raising them, or will they, in fact, end up demoralising party activists? 

It is true that many, including observers from the media and political leaders, were taken aback to see the results of the state assembly polls in Maharashtra. It turned out to be a clean sweep for the BJP-led Mahayuti, and the BJP won 132 seats in the state assembly, which now happens to be the party's best ever performance in the state. People were shocked or surprised mainly because this came just about five months after the Lok Sabha polls in which the same BJP-led Mahayuti received a drubbing and suffered a major setback. This provided many leaders from the opposition, such as Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut, to raise doubts about the authenticity of the poll process and also provided scope to the question of whether Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were manipulated. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has time and again clarified that the machines cannot be tampered with and has demonstrated many times to underline the fact. But the allegations keep coming, and now questions over the poll process have been raised inside the Lok Sabha by the Leader of the Opposition. 

Firstly, it needs to be seen what is achieved by raising such questions, based on figures that the ECI has claimed to be inflated. If the Leader of the Opposition is suggesting that the process has been manipulated, would it not demoralise his own party workers? Because once it is taken for granted by the opposition leader that the process itself is designed towards making the ruling party win, why would his party cadres work in the field in the next polls? Secondly, his assumption that the newly-registered voters, who according to him are around 70 lakh in number, have all voted in favour of the ruling party, cannot be acceptable. 

At a party rally of the MNS in Mumbai last week, Raj Thackeray, too, sounded sceptical about the assembly poll process and suggested that there may have been large scale manipulation. His statement sounded similar to Rahul Gandhi when he cast aspersions over the functioning of the ECI. But the big discrepancy in this is that Raj Thackeray had announced his full and unconditional support for the BJP-led Mahayuti before the Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra, and that support continued during the state assembly polls of November 2024. If Raj is now suggesting that there was tampering or manipulation in the poll process, who is he holding responsible for this manipulation? Doesn’t he, obviously, mean to say that the ruling party, which is the BJP, is responsible for this? In such a case, would Raj Thackeray launch an agitation against the ruling party or the coalition on this issue? 

There are many factors that indicate that the suspicions or the doubts raised by the Congress MP, Rahul Gandhi, and MNS Chief Raj Thackeray may not hold water. The first factor is that the winning margin of the candidates in many constituencies has been very slim. Many candidates won the polls by just a few hundred votes in the state assembly elections, making it clear that the fights were very close and hence the results very difficult to manipulate. The second factor is that the numbers clearly show that there was a 5.6% increase in women voters in this election and also an increase in the number of voters in the BJP-influenced urban areas, which suggests that the DBT, or Direct Benefit Transfer, schemes announced by the government made an impact in the voting, and the Hindutva narrative set by the BJP about a month ahead of the polls worked in the BJP dominated urban areas on a major scale. It seems that the increased votes were those of women who were beneficiaries of the Ladki Bahin Yojana and the urban voters, who came out in large numbers because the BJP's support groups worked hard on bringing them out to vote. An additional factor was that the opposition vote, or the anti-Mahayuti vote, was seen splitting three to four ways because of smaller parties like the MNS cutting into them.

This is not to say that the entire election process is always flawless or that there is no violation of the model code of conduct by any party. In any election, there are always some elements who try to manipulate things; sometimes rules are broken or voters are influenced. This may happen to some extent in some isolated cases here and there. However, to paint the whole picture with one colour or raise doubts about the entire election process is not fair, and the effects of that would, perhaps, be self-damaging for the opposition and its party workers’ morale! 

Rohit Chandavarkar is a senior journalist who has worked for 31 years with various leading newspaper brands and television channels in Mumbai and Pune