"Democracy in India was destroyed in 2014": opposition leader's charge, as party colleague softens the phone-tapping claim
India ceased to be a democracy in 2014 and its institutions have since been taken over by fascists, Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday, targeting the BJP-headed NDA government over alleged electoral manipulation, voter deletions through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and an alleged nexus between business and politics. He was addressing the valedictory session of the Bharat Summit 2026 in Hyderabad.
"We are going to defeat Modi and get rid of him... You can see it on the streets in Delhi and in the fear Modi and Amit Shah have. This already is a done deal," he said. He also apologised to foreign delegates and leaders who could not attend the summit after their visas were cancelled, saying it was not the organisers' fault but that it gives a sense of what they are dealing with within the country.
He said the 2014 Lok Sabha elections marked an unprecedented change in India's electoral system, with millions and millions of dollars injected into politics, and that they later discovered - and have, in his words, proven beyond doubt - that democracy in India was destroyed that year.
Citing Maharashtra, he said the alliance of the Congress, the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP (SP) won a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha elections but was decimated in the assembly polls three months later. When the numbers were analysed, he said, the alliance parties got the same number of votes in both elections, while seven million new voters were magically added in three months and helped the BJP win.
He accused the government of using institutions against opposition politicians, saying he himself has 45 cases against him and that every opposition politician has cases in different parts of the country, travelling from one state to another to deal with them. Taking aim at the alleged nexus between business and politics, he referred to a businessman who was the world's sixth-richest person before the BJP came to power and rose to second place through what he called a fusion of politics and business.
A party colleague distances himself from the phone-tapping charge
A day after Rahul Gandhi alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is tapping his phone, Overseas Congress chief Sam Pitroda said his own telephone is under constant surveillance and his laptops and bank accounts are always under attack - though he does not know who is behind it. Asked about the allegation naming the Prime Minister, he said the PM does not do that - the PM does not take a screwdriver and get on a computer to tap it - but somebody is doing it. He declined to comment further on the claim naming Modi, saying that was for Rahul Gandhi to answer.
Pitroda said he had shown his laptop to Apple and other experts, who told him he is always under attack. Pressed on who might be behind it, he said he does not know, but that there are people trying to promote one agenda - they change his Wikipedia page by design, and someone even wrote to his children with goofy pictures. He added that he is unruffled by the cyber attacks and can live with them, saying he does not have the resources to follow all of it.