Fascists running country, India no longer democracy: Rahul at Bharat Summit | Hyderabad News
Hyderabad: Attacking the BJP-led NDA govt at Centre, Leader of the Opposition and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday reiterated his earlier stand that India was no longer a democracy because its democratic framework had collapsed since 2014.Giving the valedictory speech at the end of Bharat Summit 2026 in Hyderabad, he alleged that fascists were running the country and that only Congress was capable of defeating Prime Minister Narendra Modi “with non-violence, truth, no hatred and love”. He also criticised the mass deletion of voters under Special Intensive Revision (SIR).“We are going to defeat Modi and get rid of him,” he insisted. “You can see it on the streets, in Delhi and in the fear Modi and Amit Shah have. This already is a done deal.”Rahul also apologised to the many foreign delegates and leaders who could not attend the event after their visas were cancelled, saying, “It was not our fault, but it gives you a sense of what we are dealing with within our country.”The Congress leader said that in 2014, India had witnessed a completely new kind of election, something never seen before. “Millions and millions of dollars were injected into the political system. An electoral system that had been accustomed to close contests and coalitions suddenly changed,” he said. “Later we discovered and have proven beyond doubt that democracy in India was destroyed in 2014.”Giving Maharashtra’s example, he said that the Congress alliance won a majority of the seats in the last Lok Sabha elections. “Three months later, the alliance was decimated. We ceased to exist as a political formation,” he said. “When we analyzed the numbers, the alliance parties got the same number of votes in both elections and seven million new voters were magically added in three months and they helped the BJP to win.”The Congress leader said the line between business and politics no longer existed. A businessman in this country, before BJP came to power, was the sixth-richest man in the world. “Some months ago, he became the second-richest man in the world through a fusion of politics and business,” he said.“Institutions were taken away. I have forty-five cases against me. Every opposition leader has cases in different parts of the country. We travel from one state to another to deal with them,” he added.“Fascists tend to scream and shout and they don’t listen,” he said. “For the last decade, fascists have been running, romping, jumping, shouting, and screaming, while the great mass of people have watched—sometimes confused, sometimes in shock—at what is going on.”No matter how many institutions fascists controlled, no matter how much money they had, and no matter how powerful they were, a direct connection with the people of India was more powerful.Highlighting the Congress party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul said the cross-country march helped opposition leaders reconnect directly with ordinary citizens and understand their concerns. Invoking Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of Satya and Ahimsa, he said truth, compassion and non-violence remained the most effective weapons against divisive and authoritarian politics.
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