HYDERABAD: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday alleged that India was "no longer a democracy" and claimed that the country's democratic institutions had been undermined since 2014.
Addressing the Bharat Summit hosted by the Telangana government in Hyderabad, Gandhi questioned the legitimacy of elections if the Election Commission declared 140 million voters illegal.
"It is important for the democratic movement on the planet that India remains a democracy, and what we have found and proven is that India is actually no longer a democracy," he said.
Gandhi alleged that the 2014 Lok Sabha election marked a significant change in India's political landscape, with millions of dollars being injected into the political system and a new style of campaigning emerging. He claimed that the Congress had found that democracy was destroyed in the country in 2014.
The Congress leader also apologised to foreign delegates who could not attend the summit, alleging that the Union government had prevented them from participating.
He said the incident offered a sense of "what we are dealing with in India".