After Comments On India’s Democracy, Rahul Gandhi Says Saddam, Gaddafi Too Had Polls, Used To Win Them

Rahul Gandhi's statement comes amid his earlier criticism in which he said India is "no longer" a democratic country, quoting media reports of a Sweden-based institute downgrading India to an "electoral autocracy".

(File Photos/ Getty Images)

In a fresh attack directed at the Prime Minister, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi also used to win elections while pointing out at India's dwindling status in global democracy metrics.

"Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi used to have elections. They used to win them. It wasn't like they weren't voting but there was no institutional framework to protect that vote," the Gandhi said during an online interaction with Brown University professor Ashutosh Varshney, faculty and students.

The statement come amid his claims that India is "no longer" a democratic country in which Gandhi quoted Swedish Institute's democracy report that downgraded India.

"India is no longer a democratic country," he tweeted while tagging a news report citing the Sweden's V-Dem Institute's democracy report that has downgraded India from "world's largest democracy" to "electoral democracy".

While raising concerns at the country’s democracy’s status on Tuesday, Gandhi said, “An election is not simply people going and pressing a button on a voting machine. An election is about narrative. An election is about institutions that make sure that the framework in the country is operating properly, an election is about the judiciary being fair and a debate taking place in parliament. So you need those things for a vote to count."

Rahul Gandhi added, "Bharatiya Janata Party MPs in Parliament tell me that they cannot have an open discussion. They say they are told what to say."

Infact, the Swedish report was followed by another global report by the US government-funded NGO Freedom House that downgraded India's status from "free" to "partly free" and claimed that "political rights and civil liberties have eroded in India since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014".  

Meanwhile, the government has strongly disproved the Freedom House report and called it "misleading, incorrect and misplaced" while asserting that the country has well established democratic practices.