India no longer a democratic country, claims Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Thursday claimed India was "no longer" a democratic country, quoting media reports on Swedish Institute's democracy report that downgraded India. "India is no longer a democratic country," he said on Twitter, tagging a news report citing Sweden's V-Dem Institute's democracy report that has downgraded India from 'world's largest democracy' to 'electoral democracy'.

This comes after another global report by a US government-funded NGO, Freedom House downgraded India's status from "free" to "partly free" and claimed that "political rights and civil liberties have eroded in India since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014".

The government has strongly rebutted the Freedom House report and called it "misleading, incorrect and misplaced", while asserting that the country has well established democratic practices.


Gandhi has been attacking the government over the issue of freedom to speech and expression.