Rahul Gandhi Spoke, But Did the Media Listen?

While the Opposition lodges its protests on 'vote theft', the role of the media will also be under scrutiny.

Questioning electoral processes is vital for a democracy and a media that ignores or derides any such attempt will be complicit in its hollowing out, writes Geeta Seshu.

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

A press conference by the Leader of the Opposition about a “theft” of votes in an election to Parliament can tell you a lot about the state of democracy in India, but only if your media decides to let you know what he said—unfiltered, accurate, and without embellishment.

The press conference by Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, on 7 August, comprised a detailed presentation of the party’s study of data obtained from the Election Commission of India (ECI) for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

Gandhi said the data revealed a large-scale manipulation of voter entries, terming it “vote chori” (vote theft). He cited data from the Mahadevapura segment of the Bangalore Central parliamentary constituency which revealed multiple voters with the same names and faulty addresses or at a single location, including 68 voters in a brewery.

The charges led to a storm of protests by Opposition party leaders who marched to the ECI office, bearing placards that it was working in collusion with the ruling government.

Media Responses to Gandhi’s Allegations

In a country that seems to be in permanent election mode, unabated fears persist over the undermining of electoral processes, whether by the most recent Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar or the electoral bonds scheme struck down by the Supreme Court of India in February 2024, controversies over the use of EVMs, persistent reports of missing or deleted voters in different constituencies, doubts over political bias in the appointment of election commissioners, and questionable calls for “one nation, one election” by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In this scenario, were the charges made by Gandhi examined and followed up with the seriousness they deserved? How was the press conference covered? What credence does the media give to the issues raised by the Leader of the Opposition? Or does it take its cues from a government that has systematically undermined any serious engagement with the media?

Of course, the press conference itself was live-streamed and played on multiple social media platforms, thereby bypassing both the possibility of a news blackout or limited reportage.

However, can a social media blitz blunt the very obvious slanted censorship by legacy media?

For the first few hours that matters in the news cycle, journalists and media watchers quickly realised that sections of the dominant media had gone into collective ostrich mode, with a near total blackout. While some media houses preferred a markedly guarded downplaying of the charges, others reacted with an outright dismissal of Gandhi’s charges. And then the tangled web began its spin.

In keeping with his usual hectoring style, the Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami accused Gandhi of spreading “disaffection” in a show titled “TruthChori” where he proclaimed that Gandhi was embarking on a dangerous course that would strike at democracy in India. Panellists on his show, political party spokespersons who had otherwise raised the charge about missing votes, were reminded that Gandhi was not to be supported.

Among the leading Hindi language newspapers, Dainik Jagran, which is the highest circulated Hindi language newspaper in India (1,277,605 as of April 2023), decided it wasn’t worth reporting in its New Delhi edition but gave it a second lead in its Lucknow edition. Amar Ujala didn’t feature it but Dainik Bhaskar did place it as a lead story.

While the report of the press conference featured on the front pages of various leading English language newspapers in the country, the middling display betrayed the seriousness with which they viewed the revelations.

The Hindu decided to lead with it while The New Indian Express took it as the second lead. The Times of India and the Hindustan Times decided it was worthy of a front-page display but only towards the middle of the page or below the fold. The Indian Express pushed it to a side while The Telegraph dumped it in the inside pages.

The Marathi media was infinitely better with the press conference itself being featured on the front pages of all leading newspapers. Loksatta led with it, as did Pudhari, while Lokmat gave it extensive coverage with full details in inside pages.

Interestingly, as if to play safe in both in the headlines and the text of the reports, Gandhi’s charge was accompanied by statements from the Chief Electoral Officers of Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Haryana that the Leader of the Opposition provides evidence of the vote theft “under oath.”

Another Political Conspiracy?

Do Gandhi’s allegations of electoral fraud amount to irresponsible political mudslinging and the work of a sore loser aggrieved over a “stolen” election? The Indian Express, in its rather confused editorial on 11 August, actually termed Gandhi’s campaign as self-serving and fraught.

While it criticises the Congress party leader for saying that the ECI has colluded with the BJP to steal the Karnataka election, it admits that electoral rolls need periodic revision, adding that while “impurities” in electoral rolls that (undoubtedly) benefitted the BJP, the claim lacked evidence and part of the Opposition’s political conspiracy theory. It does weakly suggest that the “ECI must recover its institutional voice to deal with the challenge” of responding to Gandhi’s allegations with alacrity. 

Some television channels made attempts to examine the charges. Times Now decided to investigate the charges made by Gandhi, interviewing three voters, two of whom admitted there were discrepancies but these had been corrected, while NDTV decided to feature accusations by BJP MP and former minister Anurag Thakur that Gandhi was “attempting to discredit democratic institutions like the ECI”. In another show, the channel went through 10 “claims vs facts” and decided that Gandhi’s charges were just another political distraction.

In CNN-News 18, Pallavi Ghosh, analysing the press conference, terms Gandhi’s presentation of the data as “impressive” but asks whether Gandhi “Hit The Bullseye With His #VoteChori? Or Is It A Redact Of His 'Chowkidaar Chor Hai' Moment?”

The Opposition allegation that it had lost, not because of "any lacuna on its part but because the polls were rigged," seeks to sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of voter. But will he succeed and hit bullseye and win elections? asked Ghosh, without going into whether elections can be won in the face of the voter manipulation that Gandhi sought to uncover.

Why Voters Matter

Ultimately, what is the entire exercise about? It was left to the few serious news media, including independent news portals and their YouTube channels to fill the gap.

In an interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, former Chief Election Commissioner of India Om Prakash Rawat termed the ECI's response to Gandhi’s allegations about fraudulent voters in Mahadevapura “inadvisable” and “unfortunate” and could lead to losing the trust of the Indian people and damaging its own credibility.

The News Minute, which had earlier investigated the collection of personal information from voters in Bengaluru by a private NGO, pointed out that while the ECI had termed Gandhi’s charges as misleading and had sought proof from him, voters with multiple EPIC numbers that Gandhi mentioned in his press conference could still be found on the ECI’s own website.

In its YouTube channel, The Hindu featured  an interview with investigative journalist Poonam Agarwal who has been following up on electoral malpractices, including the electoral bonds for several years.

Examining the role of the ECI and its state chief electoral officers, Agarwal points out that the story of the data was essentially about the loss of voters, of the scores of humans who were rendered invisible.

Uncounted and wiped out, their deletion makes a mockery of the principle of the power of one vote per person, striking at the fundamental foundation of electoral democracy.

While the Opposition lodges its protests in the days to come, the role of the media will also be under scrutiny. Questioning electoral processes is vital for a democracy and a media that ignores or derides any such attempt will be complicit in its hollowing out.

(The author would like to acknowledge Vivek Mukherjee and Paroma Mukherjee for sharing pics of the front pages of English and Hindi language newspapers, and Vasant Bhosale for sharing pics of the front pages of Marathi newspapers. The author is co-editor of the Free Speech Collective. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)