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UWhen Gujaratis cast their ballots last week in India’s six-week long election, there was one constituency in the state that was silent. There were no polling stations or impatient lines of people and no one with the telltale ink finger. No vote was needed in Surat – the outcome was already decided.
Mukesh Dalal of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the seat by default after every other candidate was either disqualified or dropped out of the race. It was the first time in 73 years that Surat’s candidate was appointed rather than elected.
Surat is not the only constituency in Gujarat to witness groups of candidates pitting themselves against the BJP and suddenly pulling out of the race. In Gandhinagar, where Amit Shah, the home minister and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-hand man, is running, 16 opposition candidates dropped out before voting last Tuesday.
Gujarat is likely to be an easy victory for the BJP in the election, which is also expected to return Modi to power for a third term. It is Modi’s home state and the stronghold of his party, which has won every state election here since 1995 and won all 26 seats in the last general election in 2019.
Yet some argue that there has been a concerted effort to cement the BJP’s hegemony in the state and declare victories by huge margins by completely eliminating the opposition. In Gandhinagar, the BJP is publicly rooting for Shah to win the seat with an unprecedented 1 million votes.
In Surat and Gandhinagar, opposition parties and activists accused the BJP of undermining democratic processes by using party workers and the police to intimidate and pressure opposition candidates to withdraw, sometimes with explicit threats of violence or direct harassment of their families. District and state BJP spokespersons declined to comment. Gujarat Director General of Police Vikas Sahai and Home Minister Shah also did not respond.
Among those who defected to Surat was Baraya Ramesh, 58, who has his own textile business and is contesting as an independent candidate. He claims that after submitting his nomination, he began to face a campaign of intimidation.
“I was threatened by the police and pressured to withdraw,” said Ramesh. “Everyone in Surat knows how every candidate was harassed and pressured not to contest the elections.”
Fearing the threats, he turned off his phone, but as soon as he turned it on, he claims he was searched by the police and picked up. “They clearly told me to withdraw the nomination, so I did,” he said, adding that he feared for his safety but said it was important that he speak publicly. “Most of the applicants were threatened by the police.”
In Gandhinagar, five opposition candidates claimed threats in the build-up to the election campaign and 16 eventually withdrew. Hours before polling began in Gandhinagar, Jitendra Chauhan, 39, who is running as a candidate for the Akhil Bhartiya Parivar party, posted a video on social media. Through sobs, he said he was forced to retreat.
Chauhan previously worked for the BJP between 2012 and 2019, but told the Guardian he had become disillusioned with the party and decided to run against Shah to fight for local issues. According to him, it was a decision that “turned my life into hell.”
“As soon as I decided to file my nomination, the police started following me everywhere,” he said. “Then on April 16, when I filed my nomination papers, I started receiving threats from BJP workers. A BJP legislator threatened to imprison me in some false case.
With each passing day, Chauhan said the threats are getting bigger. “People were calling me, coming to my house and giving me an ultimatum to quit. Then the police started harassing my friends,” he said. “I felt so threatened that I had to withdraw my nomination.”
One of the candidates, Sumitra Maurya, 43, a teacher contesting elections for the first time with the Prajatantra Aadhar Party, said she refused to be intimidated by the “nasty and frightening” campaign of intimidation that began from the moment she submitted his nomination for Gandhinagar in April.
“I knew very well who I was fighting against – the man who is the home minister of India, a political heavyweight,” she said. “But I firmly believe in the power of democracy.
It initially started with a visit to Maurya’s home by unknown men, then constant calls to her and her husband asking why she was running away. WhatsApp messages saying ‘offer’, ‘call me’ and ‘it’s urgent’ started flooding in and then relatives started calling asking her to withdraw.
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Fearing the threats, she traveled with her family about 200 miles outside the city. But after they checked into their hotel, there was a knock at the door and several men in plainclothes stood outside and demanded to speak to her husband. When Maurya confronted the men, they eventually revealed that they were from the crime branch of the police, who said they were under intense pressure from their seniors.
Through the hotel window, Maurya could see the men walking around the property throughout the night, and she claims two cars followed them when they returned the next morning. She still refused to remove her name from the ballot.
“They want to set an example so people like me think a hundred times before even thinking about racing.”
The vote in Gandhinagar was also mired in allegations of widespread irregularities. In one video that has surfaced, Muslims – who are unlikely to support the BJP – appear to be paid cash to pretend to have voted.
Multiple polling agents told the Guardian they witnessed Muslim voters being coerced or threatened not to vote, and there are several videos that appear to show outsiders being brought in to vote illegally in place of absentees. At least one booth in the constituency has been ordered to repeat the vote.
“During the campaign and on election day, the police and local administration worked together with BJP workers to scare our workers and people who thought they would vote against the BJP,” said Sonal Patel, 64, a candidate for the opposition Congress party in Gandhinagar, who remained in the race.
Patel also accused BJP workers of trying to pay off and extort Congress candidates and workers to switch sides and said she was repeatedly prevented from campaigning by the authorities. “All this is done because they want to win by the biggest margin,” she said.
Several candidates and human rights activists filed complaints with the Election Commission – the election watchdog accused of being co-opted by the BJP government – and also asked for an additional police presence on polling day, but received no official response. The local electoral commission did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
Shabnam Hashmi, an activist who was present, also filed complaints with the Election Commission. “I have seen harassment, intimidation and manipulation of elections before, but never on this scale and never with the entire state machinery behind it,” Hashmi said. “It was unprecedented and very unfortunate for our democracy.”
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