Note: This article is a transcription of a speech by Dr. Prakala Prabhakar at a meeting titled “Stolen Republic”, which was conducted in Chennai on August 23, 2025, by Voice of TN and headed by Mr. Maruthaiyan. Emphasis added.
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Today, a fellow passenger on my flight to Hyderabad, someone who has presumably seen me before on YouTube or news channels, said, “Look, Parakala, you are missing one important point.” He said, “you are aware of the structure of BJP.” BJP has different wings. They’re called ‘morchas.’ There is Bharatiya Jana Yuva morcha (youth wing), Mahila morcha, Kisan morcha, minority morcha, and so on. Recently, over the last ten years or so, there is a new morcha. There is an election morcha”. Then I thought, it makes sense. What we have today is not the Election Commission of India, but an election morcha [of the BJP]. This election morcha did a wonderful job.
You know, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, a lot of exercise was done. In this venue, last year, on the 8th of August — Just about a year ago — I gave a detailed presentation based on a very thoroughly researched report of the Vote For Democracy (VFD) group, which concluded that 79 seats had changed hands because of a vote hike of around 5crore votes that had taken place. Between the provisional figure, announced by The Election Commission of India, and the final figure, there was a huge hike that amounted to about 5crore votes. Those 5crore votes had changed the fortune of about a minimum of 79 [Lok Sabha] seats spread across 15 states. If that had not happened, the NDA, which won 293 seats in 2024, would have only won 214. The opposition alliance, which won 234, would have won 313. When you take this figure into your mind — 214 NDA and 313 Opposition — then the idea that there is an election morcha makes sense.
In Tamil Nadu, Maruthaiyan and other people like Mathur Sathya are seems very confident that [as though] nothing is going to happen to Tamnilnadu. Before the election, I went to Kerala many times for my book release. I used to warn them, “Don’t think that you’re Western Ghats are going to protect you. Something is going to happen. Be careful about it.” But they were very complacent. “Nothing is going to happen to Kerala,” they said. But it happened [in 2024 elections].
The game is a very sophisticated game, please understand this. You will hear a lot of arguments in social media like “look, what you are saying? If the mandate is stolen, they would have had 400 seats. Why will they settle for 293? In fact, the BJP alone could have had 400 seats if they were stealing. So, They didn’t steal, they’re good people.” You hear this kind of thing. This is the problem with other political parties. We have been shouting from the rooftops since the elections concluded in 2024. Look, there are lot of problems with 2024 poll data. Nobody talked about it until recently when the leader of the opposition said something. After a huge exercise, now there is a discussion. Good, there is a discussion. But, we have been shouting. Nobody bothered. You know why they were not bothered? Why did political parties not say anything? Because they don’t have an answer if somebody says “When you win Telangana it is ok is it? When you win Chattisgarh it is ok is it? When you win Himachal Pradesh it’s all right, but when you lose Maharashtra you say it’s stolen!” They don’t have an answer to that. “When you win Karnataka is it ok?” They don’t have an answer. But there is an answer. There is an answer in data. There is an answer in logic. Before I bore you with data, I will give you the logic. Do you know what a casino is? You must be playing cards and things like that. In a casino, if you lose every time you go, will you go again? How does a casino run? A casino runs on the basis of hope. I win now, I lose now. I win again, I may lose two, but I will win again later. I will be able to win now and then. But ultimately at the end of the day who wins? The casino wins.
“[You will be allowed to] take Chattisgarh. [But,] Maharashtra, no! We want Dharavi. Dharavi development is important. We [the BJP] want that. Chhattisgarh you take, no one worries. Himachal, take it! No Harayana. Because when the farmers want to storm Delhi we need Haryana to stop them.” So, the casino is a very sophisticated game. Please understand this. Don’t be fooled by a win here and a win there. Understand what you are losing. You might win Chattisgarh, but you will lose Maharashtra. You might win Telangana, but you will lose Lok Sabha. So, [at the end] casino wins. Please understand this.
Why do I say this? I say this because there was a huge jump of the BJP’s vote share in Tamil Nadu. How much, do you know? In 2019, the BJP’s vote share in Tamil Nadu was 3.58 percent. What was it in 2024? 11.24 percent. They are showing you progress! Growth! So tomorrow… when is your election? 2026, right? What if something happens in 2026? You see, there is a record, from 3.58 to 11.24. It’s not a big deal after that. You see? They can also tell you how many seats they win in Tamil Nadu now [itself]. [Laughter] So, how much is the growth? From 2019 to 2024, the growth is about 7%. There is a wonderful giveaway here. The difference between the provisional polling figure and the final polling figure in Tamil Nadu in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was 7.53%. So, you can see the growth. There is growth. Don’t think that the growth is from here. Growth is from there. That is why the morcha is important here.
Friends, I want to sound an alarm bell. I feel like saying this because, after seeing you sitting here for more than three hours, I feel confident that you are serious. If you do not arrest this now, forget about a democratic India. If you let this pass now, you are not likely to have another proper general election to the Lok Sabha. Don’t think I am being too alarmist. Don’t think that “anything can happen anywhere but not in India, anything can happen anywhere but not in Tamil Nadu.” Don’t think like that. There is a first time for everything. You have seen a lot of things that have happened for the first time in India. BJP has given you a huge list, from Pegasus to electoral bonds and SIR etc. This is also likely to happen. It has to be arrested. For it to be arrested, it cannot be a fight between two political parties or two alliances. You cannot claim it as one against the other, A against B, alliance against a different alliance, party against opposition party! No! It has to be framed in such a way that this is a fight for the republic by the people, by the common voters, by you and me, against this kind of a fraud that is being committed on the country. Only then are we going to save our democracy. It is not because you want to support Rahul Gandhi or congress or any another party, it is to save our democracy and our republic. Also, to save our democracy and our republic, we have to come out onto the roads and say this must stop. Please stop thinking that if you post on social media you have done your duty. It has to be feet on the ground and agitation to save our democracy. Otherwise you are not going to save democracy in this country.
The other day I was talking to somebody, I said, “all this is happening!” He looked at me complacently and very confidently said, “Look, I have demolished all these arguments.” I asked him, “where?.” He said “I have demolished them [the BJP] on Facebook. Don’t you follow me on Facebook?” He demolished all these arguments on Facebook. But, those two guys [Modi and Amit Shah] are happily going to the bank – the vote bank.
I will make two additional points. I said, “Do you know that we had seven phases of polling?” He said, “Yeah.” I continued, “And, the Election Commission took 11 days to declare the final polling percentage for phase 1. 11 days. Did you know that?” It took 4 days to declare the final polling percentage for phase 2. Phase 3 took 4 days. Phase 4 took 4 days. Phase 5 took 3 days. Phase 6 took 4 days. Phase 7 took 5 days. Why? Why did the morcha take so long to tell you what is the final percentage of polling? It’s very alarming. Do you know when was the last day of polling? It was the first (June 1st, 2024). When were the results declared? Fourth (June 4th). Do you know that the seventh phase final polling percentage was released on June 6? i.e., after the final results were declared, the Election Commission gives out the final figure for phase 7. What is happening? In digital India? There is one more thing, phase two is a very interesting case. Even today, you don’t have constituency-wise preliminary polling data for phase two. So you do not know how much it has hiked. If you say this is the preliminary data and this is the final data, even somebody like me who doesn’t know much of mathematics can sit and say look, this is the hike. I told you about Tamil Nadu hike. But you can’t say this as a whole because the Election Commission refused to give, for phase 2, even state-wise data. It gave phase data. The entire phase? Does it make sense? It refused to give state-wise data. Then, after some time, it gave state-wise data, but it still hasn’t given constituency-wise data. Now, why is this important? It is important because the strike rate of BJP-NDA in phase 2 was extraordinary. In phase 2, in West Bengal, 3 seats went to election. All the 3 seats went to BJP. In UP, 8 seats went to polling. All the seats went to BJP. In Madhya Pradesh, 6 seats went to the polls. All the seats went to BJP. In Chattisgarh 3 seats went to the polls in phase 2. All three went to BJP. In Tripura 1 seat went to the polls in phase 2. That one seat went to BJP. In J&K one seat went to polls in phase 2. That seat went to BJP. In Karnataka 14 went to polls in phase 2. 12 of those had gone to BJP. In Rajasthan, 13 seats went to the polls. 10 seats had gone to BJP. In Assam 5 had gone to the polls in phase 2. 4 had gone to BJP. Exdtraordinary strike rate.
One more thing. Why is it important to talk about the hikes? Wherever there was a huge hike, for instance, in Odisha, where the hike was 12.48%, do you know what happened? Out of 21 setas BJP won 20. In Andhra Pradesh, the hike was 12.54%. NDA won 21 out of 25 seats. So many states, 15 states, with large scorings and large hikes.
What happened when the spike was very little? Historically, the hike has never been more than 1% between the provisional and the final figures. Many times it is half a percent or even lesser. Historically. I think this is the time for us to talk about UP. In UP, which had polling for all the seven phases, in phase 1, the hike was 3.25%. In phase 2, we don’t know. We were not given the figures. There, as I said, 8 seats went to polls and all of them were bagged by BJP. Now, in phase 3, 0.2% hike. In phase 4, 0.34%. Phase 5, 0.23%. Phase 6, 0.01%. Phase 7, 0.25%. You know what happened? From 67, the NDA came down to 36. So when the hike was less, the NDA fell. Where do we go from here? There is so much to talk about. I don’t want to bore with you a lot of data. There is a huge amount of data. Let me spend a couple minutes talking about what we are going to do now. Political parties will not agree now, but I’m sure one day they will have to come to this conclusion. Look, this Lok Sabha is sitting there on the basis of a fraudulent election. It has to go. And the government which is there now has come out of this Lok Sabha which is fraudulently elected. It has to go. Why do I say that this Lok Sabha is elected on the basis of a fraudulent election, faulty voter list, and lots of duplication? Not just because the leader of the opposition has said it. One of the cabinet ministers of this government also has said it. Are you aware of that? He said “why are you talking about Mahadevpura? What about that Raebareli? Raebareli also has fraud,” which means they are both frauds. Why don’t you cancel it? Cancel it and have an election after a proper revision of the electoral role. And, before you do that, disband this morcha [i.e., the Election Commision].
Look, I’m asking for something you think is impractical or impossible. But, what is the point in having this pretense of being in a democracy, with a government, parliament and election? Why do you pretend these exist? What is this pretension for? There is now a cross party consensus that the voter list has a lot of frauds. Some people are coming up and saying it’s been like this forever. Were the elections always fraudulent? They will say that there was fraud in the 1952 elections also. I was not born then, I was not party to that. This election, I am here, and I know the voters list has too many frauds, as Sagar had just said now. It has to go. It has to be completely cleansed. It has to be cleaned up. And then, have an election. Cleaning up is not simply eliminating people. We need proper cleaning up, with integrity. What we need now is an electoral process with 100% integrity. All this is not to express dislike for a particular party or particular leader. If it’s a process with complete integrity, let anybody win. If I don’t like them, I’ll politically fight. If I like them, then I’m fine. But, if the process is rigged, I can’t fight.
I’ve been telling friends in political parties, “look, if you think by working hard, you’ll win next election, it is not going to happen. You are playing against the casino.” 5crore votes were hiked in the 2024 election. Next election, if you don’t stop this now, 10crore votes will be hiked. Another election, after that, 20crore votes will be hiked. What will you do? You won’t do anything. If there is a fraud, a hike, and you still contest the election, you are only giving an opportunity, you are legitimizing the fraudulent elections. So, until the electoral roles are properly cleaned up, don’t contest the election.
The present Election Commission cannot inspire confidence that it could be impartial because the way it’s appointed itself gives you a lot of suspicion. It is appointed like a government secretary is appointed. It is the Prime Minister and a cabinet minister with leader of the opposition — leader of the oppositon has no role there, no majority — it’s just a government decision. Supreme Court’s Chief Justice’s role is eliminated. Now after Suprem Court’s Chief Justice’s role is eliminated, how can you say that this appointment is an impartial appointment. Well sometimes, even a government appointee, can act impartially. Don’t forget T.N. Seshan. Seshan was not appointed by the Supreme Court or anybody else. Seshan was appointed by the government. Still, he said ‘this is not Election Commission of Government of India’, he said, ‘this is Election Commission of India. Not a government department. I am not answerable to the cabinet secretary. I am not answerable to the Prime Minister. Nobody can call me. I won’t take anybody’s call. I’m answerable to the President of India. I’m answerable to the people of India. I’m answerable to the parliament of India.’ A government appointee like TN Seshan had said that. But, the present Election Commission and the commissioners and the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) — look at the way they have conducted themselves. The Prime Minister during the election campaign delivered 110 hate speeches, and not a single notice was given to him. That is the Election Commission we have. And they released the final figures of phase 1 after 11 days. They released the final figures of the last phase after the results are declared. Does this inspire any confidence? Is it impartial? So, disband Election Commission. Dissolve the Lok Sabha. Get rid of this government. Clean up the electoral roles, and then conduct the election — whoever wins. No problem at all.
Now, why is this happening? It’s important. We have talked about what should happen and what we should do. Let’s talk about why this is happening. This is happening because there is an agenda to turn this country, this republic, into a theocratic republic – a Hindu majoritarian state. That is the agenda. I don’t have a problem with you having this agenda. I disagree with the agenda, I’ll fight it. The problem is that, because the Indian electorate will never ever give a mandate to that kind of a divisive majoritarian agenda — and this election is proof of this, even with the fraud — it’s very clear that the Indian electorate does not endorse this. Before BJP was born it used to be BJS (Bharatiya Jana Sangh). The leaders of BJS used to be stalwarts. The idea of turning India into a theocratic Hindu majoritarian state was championed by big people, such as Shama Prasad Mukherjee, Blaraj Magok, Swami Karapatriji, and at that time in the RSS, Golwalkar was alive. With all those big people, and still the peak performance of BJS was 9%. 9% popular vote. After that BJS merged into Janata party. After that they came out saying they are Gandhian socialists and such. You know all that. Remember, please remember, that every political party those days used to say we are all secular. Isn’t it? Every party, including the BJP. Do they say so today? No. They are bold. Because they realized then that divisive agenda peak performance was not beyond 9%, they went on saying they were also secular. The so-called controversial points on their agenda like Ram Janma Bhoomi, Article 370, Uniform Civil Code, were put on the so-called backburner. Then, they got 20 to 22%. They get allies from DMK, TDP, etc… and formed governments.
2024 was also not a communal propaganda, communal agenda, communal manifesto. But once they realized they had to do this (push towards a Hindu theocratic state) — and Indian electorate is not endorsing this kind of thing — what do you do? Then, you build “morchas” for elections. That is the reason why we have this kind of a huge fraud of about 5crore votes hike in 2024, and now you have what Sagar told us, the SIR of taking out all those people who are not likely to vote for you. So, this is the design. This is why it is happening. It has to be stopped.
We need feet-on-the-ground agitation. Not Slacktivism [The practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online petitions, characterized as involving very little effort or commitment]. Not on social media. That’s not enough. Please talk to the youngsters. Please talk to the campuses, Sagar. This is important. Sir, everything has to be done. Don’t wait for something to happen. How will you demolish the morcha without proper agitation? You need a movement. You need to apply Pressure. These political parties must stay away from elections and make the ruling party a laughing stock. Political parties think “if I don’t contest the election they will —” no. It’s not possible. It won’t happen. Everybody would laugh at them. Well, just think about it. It’s very serious. If you miss this inflection point, Indian democracy is out of our hands. We won’t be able to retrieve it. We won’t be able to save it. At least now, we have a chance. After that, even this kind of a chance, even sitting in a place like this and talking about it also, would be impossible.
by
Dr. Parakala Prabhakar.
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End Note:
After this meeting he also gave an interview. (on August 30, 2025). We would like to add some points from that. “There is a danger here” he said, “This game is very sophisticated one as we noted. What happens, after these kind of agitation and all that, if the RJD-Congress alliance wins? Are you fine with it? No I am not fine with it! But there is a danger the entire temperature suddenly comes down. After that, if the present ruling dispensation wins every election you can’t question it. The interviewer asks “then the only option left for the opposition is total boycott?” Parakala answerd, “Exactly, there is no altenative.” [1]
In other words, he said, by contesting the elections the opposition parties not only legitimizing the whole electoral process and the winning regime, but also the fraudulent SIR process and the future rigged victories of the BJP. Moreover, in case the RJD-Congress wins the upcoming Bihar elections the SIR will be legitimized among people and “vote chori” agitation will die down. Needless to say, then the BJP will push the SIR nation-wide without slightest fear or hesitation. The opposition and anti-fascist forces will be at the position where they are unable to raise their voice against not only of SIR but also any fraudulent acts.
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References
[1] Should opposition BOYCOTT elections? | feat. Dr. Parakala Prabhakar
