India, Nov. 2 -- Leader of the Opposition and Jawaharlal Nehru clan scion Rahul Gandhi has put electoral integrity and constitutional democracy at the centre of national politics, but the Indian National Congress he leads, with party president Mapanna Mallikarjun Kharge, must show that it can defend these principles where the vote is cast, contested and counted.

Rahul Gandhi has spent the years since the Bharat Jodo Yatra mounting one of the most sustained political challenges to the Narendra Modi government, his indictment ranging from the proximity of corporate interests, particularly the Adani behemoth, to political authority, to the alleged capture of public institutions, and from doubts about electoral integrity to the defence of a...