BJP leader GVL Narasimha Rao has hit back hard at Rahul Gandhi’s claims of vote theft in elections. Speaking in New Delhi on Friday, Rao dismissed the Congress leader’s allegations as baseless, pointing to decades of election data that show Congress’s decline started long before Narendra Modi became Prime Minister.
Rao explained that Congress’s troubles began way back in 1989, not with Modi’s rise in 2014. He shared some eye-opening stats: In 1984, under Rajiv Gandhi, Congress dominated with 404 out of 543 Lok Sabha seats and a whopping 49.1% vote share. But over the next three decades, their support kept slipping. By 2014, they hit rock bottom with just 44 seats and 19.5% votes. “This isn’t about Modi—it’s Congress’s own downward spiral,” Rao said in his article.
Taking a dig at Gandhi, Rao asked if the Congress would label former Prime Minister VP Singh a “vote chor” too. VP Singh’s Janata Dal beat Congress in the 1989 Lok Sabha polls, kicking off their big fall. “If VP Singh played a key role in toppling Congress, does Rahul Gandhi see him as Vote Chor Number 1?” Rao quipped.
Rao didn’t stop there. He listed opposition heavyweights like Sharad Pawar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, and MK Stalin, whose parties have crushed Congress in the past but now team up with them. In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party ousted Congress, and Mayawati once called them anti-Dalit—yet they allied in 1996. “Why does Congress cozy up to these ‘vote chor’ parties instead of fighting solo?” Rao challenged.
He also pointed to West Bengal, where Congress faded after Jyoti Basu took charge as Chief Minister. “Will Rahul Gandhi dare call Marxist Jyoti Basu or Mamata Banerjee vote thieves ahead of next year’s Bengal elections?” Rao wondered.
For Rao, Modi’s 2014 victory was just the “final nail in the coffin” for Congress’s long decline. He urged the party to drop “fake narratives and hoot-and-scoot politics,” saying they can’t rewrite history no matter how much noise they make.
This comes after Rahul Gandhi doubled down on his vote theft accusations. On Friday, he told reporters that Congress has “dynamic and explosive evidence” of stolen votes in past assembly elections. “Votes being stolen is a fact. The slogan ‘vote chor, gaddi chor’ is spreading like wildfire because it’s the truth,” Gandhi said. He promised to share proofs soon, echoing claims he made on August 7 against the Election Commission of India for alleged large-scale voter fraud.
As the debate heats up, eyes are on how these Lok Sabha election trends and vote share drops will shape the political battle ahead.
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