In recent days, a political storm has erupted over allegations of election rigging, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accusing the ruling BJP and the Election Commission of orchestrating a "match-fixing" operation during the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections. In an op-ed dated June 7, Rahul outlined what he described as a five step plan to subvert democracy: manipulating the appointment of the Election Commission, inflating voter rolls with fake entries, artificially boosting voter turnout, enabling strategic bogus voting, and finally, concealing key evidence such as polling booth CCTV footage. He backed his claims with statistics showing a sudden surge of 4.1 million new voters added in just five months, compared to only 3.1 million in the prior five years, and called for the Election Commission to release machine readable electoral rolls and full day CCTV footage from polling stations to ensure transparency. The Election Commission of India (ECI) dismissed these allegations as "absurd" and "unsubstantiated," pointing out that Rahul Gandhi had not filed any formal complaint. It also clarified that CCTV footage is available through proper judicial processes, such as election petitions in high courts, not through public channels. Responding sharply to the accusations, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis labeled Rahul’s claims as “nonsense” and a “disservice to democracy.” He argued that the increase in voter numbers is a natural outcome of demographic shifts and urban expansion, and that Congress’s accusations are a preemptive excuse for poor electoral performance. Fadnavis also noted that all legal challenges to electronic voting machines (EVMs) had been dismissed by courts, and questioned why Congress alone was raising these doubts. According to TOI "If you cannot convince people, then confuse them. This is the policy that Rahul Gandhi is adopting," Mr Fadnavis wrote in a Marathi daily on Sunday, a day after he said he would respond to the "article with an article". The Congress party, however, has doubled down. The Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee has demanded a narco test for the Chief Electoral Officer and announced statewide torchlight protests scheduled for June 12. AICC leader Ramesh Chennithala pointed to a blocked mock poll in Solapur as further proof of manipulation. Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD also weighed in, alleging widespread institutional bias favoring the BJP and questioning the ECI’s impartiality. This clash reveals a deepening rift over the credibility of India’s electoral process, with Congress pushing for transparency and accountability while the BJP and Election Commission defend the system's integrity. With upcoming elections in Bihar and elsewhere, the outcome of this confrontation both politically and legally could have significant consequences.