Rahul Gandhi's Atom Bomb or Diwali Phataka

Rahul Gandhi marched into battle with what he thought was an atom bomb. Turned out, it was a cheap Diwali phataka that fizzled out before anyone could even blink. The bomb-maker? One Professor Sanjay Kumar of CSDS—an institution that claims to do “serious research” but behaves like a fortune-teller at Chandni Chowk.

Poor man. He sweated for days manufacturing a fake story about voters disappearing from Maharashtra constituencies. Rahul picked it up gleefully, waved it around like a child with a new toy, and shouted “Chor! Chor!” at the Election Commission. And then—kaboom! The professor himself apologized, saying he had “misread the data.” Misread? That’s like a cook claiming he mistook salt for sugar and fed everyone kheer with pickles.

Let’s not be fooled. This was no slip of the pen. CSDS and its ilk have been in the business of twisting numbers for decades. They rent a grand bungalow in Delhi, live off mysterious funding, and every election season, churn out “surveys” that smell more like political pamphlets than research. Today it’s Maharashtra, yesterday it was Bihar, tomorrow it will be Uttar Pradesh. Always a crisis, always a narrative, and always—coincidentally—against the ruling party.

And the media, bless their gullible souls, lap it up. The Hindu prints long essays, *Times of India* runs editorials, and TV channels invite the same “experts” who predict winners with the accuracy of a drunk astrologer. Nobody bothers to check whether apples are being compared with oranges—or with grapes, as in this case. Why bother? Lies sell.

Meanwhile, Congress spokespersons like Pawan Khera pounce on these cooked-up numbers, make colourful graphics, and post them online as if they’ve unearthed the Rosetta Stone. When caught, silence. No apology. Not even a sheepish grin.

But the real tragedy is not Rahul Gandhi’s damp squib or Sanjay Kumar’s clumsy retreat. The real tragedy is that ordinary Indians start believing that the Election Commission—the one institution that still manages to run elections in this vast madhouse of a country—is stealing their votes. That cynicism, not fake data, is the real atom bomb.

So here we are. The professor has apologized. Congress hasn’t. The media won’t. And Rahul Gandhi is probably still looking for the next “atom bomb” in his pocket. Someone should tell him—it’s empty.