As Rahul Gandhi protests against ECI, right-wing’s ‘gotcha’ moment is a chicken roll

As Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and other prominent leaders of the India bloc protested against the massive irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls on October 6, Tuesday, a section of the Hindu right-wing appeared to discover a far more pressing national issue: what he was eating.

Rahul Gandhi was spotted eating a roll while protesting with INDIA bloc leaders after their march to the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters was stopped by the Delhi Police. For several verified accounts on X, however, the roll was apparently more consequential than the allegations surrounding the revision of electoral rolls.

The outrage came with its own carefully assembled set of supposed incriminating details. It was a chicken roll. The eatery that sold it was reportedly owned by a Muslim. And, most importantly, it was Tuesday.

The implication was that Rahul Gandhi had somehow committed a religious transgression by eating an egg or a chicken on a day that some Hindus consider auspicious and avoid non-vegetarian food. Several posts questioned Rahul Gandhi’s commitment to his Hindu faith, while others claimed he was eating chicken during Shradh, a period when many Hindu families pay homage to and offer food to their departed ancestors.

In other words, while the Opposition was protesting over mass deletion of voters from the electoral rolls, a section of the online Hindu right-wing decided to conduct an investigation into Rahul Gandhi’s lunch.

Several verified X accounts amplified the claims, presenting Gandhi’s food choices as evidence of hypocrisy or a lack of commitment to Hinduism. The arguments appeared to rest on the assumption that there is a single, uniform Hindu dietary code that applies to everyone, regardless of region, community, family practice or personal belief.

On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi, along with INDIA bloc leaders, had staged a prolonged sit-in at Akashvani Bhawan after police stopped the Opposition’s march from Parliament towards the ECI headquarters.

The Opposition MPs had sought a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the other Election Commissioners to raise their concerns over the SIR exercise.

“300 opposition MPs were removed from there, so I came here and sat. We just want to meet Gyanesh Kumar and the other election commissioners. We are all opposition MPs from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, and we just want to talk to them. Don’t know why the Election Commission does not want to talk to us. Crores of people have voted for us. We just want to ask questions, but they don’t want to answer,” Rahul Gandhi said.

He later said the Opposition was willing to continue the sit-in and asked the police to provide an alternative venue if they did not want the protest to continue at Akashvani Bhawan.

“All I want to do is meet the Chief Election Commissioner and tell him that he has done ‘vote chori’. I can continue to sit here. I am comfortable here. If they don’t want us to sit here, give me some other site,” Gandhi said.

The ECI, however, disputed the Opposition’s claim that it had sought a meeting. In a statement issued on Tuesday evening, the poll panel said no political party had sought an appointment until 4 pm.

The agitation against the ECI has intensified following an Indian Express report that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections on 14 occasions over 10 months to decisions taken by the Commission on issues including voter additions and deletions. The ECI has said differences of opinion and suggestions are part of the decision-making process and that all final decisions were unanimous.

The protest also came a day after the Supreme Court clarified that it had not approved changes made by the ECI to Form 6, the statutory form used for voter registration. The court said it would examine the ECI’s records to determine who authorised the changes.