Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has launched a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), alleging that the party used institutional control and electoral manipulation to secure a sweeping victory in the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections.

In an opinion piece published in The Indian Express, Gandhi described the process as a "match-fixing" operation, claiming the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) followed a carefully crafted five-step model to distort the democratic outcome. These steps, according to him, involved tampering with the selection of Election Commissioners, adding ineligible names to the voter rolls, inflating turnout numbers, focusing fake votes on key battlegrounds, and systematically covering up evidence of malpractice.

The BJP and its allies — the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party — won 235 out of 288 seats in the assembly. The BJP alone captured 132 seats, its highest-ever tally in the state. Meanwhile, the Congress-led opposition alliance, including Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP), was reduced to just 50 seats, a major setback for both regional leaders who had already suffered party splits and symbol losses earlier in the year.

Gandhi’s criticism focuses heavily on the 2023 amendment to the law governing the appointment of Election Commissioners. The new legislation replaced the Chief Justice of India on the selection panel with a Union Minister — a move he says compromises the neutrality of the Election Commission by giving the executive more influence.

He also questioned the rapid increase in voter registration. Gandhi pointed out that Maharashtra’s voter list grew by 31 lakh between the 2019 Assembly and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections — but then jumped by another 41 lakh in just five months before the November state polls. He cast doubt on the legitimacy of this increase, suggesting it was part of a broader effort to stack the rolls with fake voters.

The Election Commission defended the figures, attributing the surge to a robust youth outreach campaign and improved enrolment processes. The BJP dismissed Gandhi’s accusations, calling them an attempt to discredit institutions and justify electoral defeat. Party spokesperson Tuhin Sinha countered that similar voter roll changes took place in states where the Congress performed well, and accused Gandhi of using shifting data points to fit a narrative.

Gandhi, however, remained firm in his stance, arguing that the integrity of India's democratic institutions is under serious threat and that electoral fairness must be restored.