The “true face of the dictator” is once again in front of the nation, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi declared on Monday, shortly after the BJP candidate was elected from the Surat Lok Sabha constituency without facing any opposition.

All other candidates in the race from Surat—four Independents, three from smaller parties, and Pyarelal Bharti of the Bahujan Samaj Party—withdrew their nomination papers on the final day, leaving BJP candidate Mukesh Dalal to win the seat without opposition.

The primary opposition party in Gujarat was eliminated from the contest on Sunday when the nominations of two Congress candidates were revoked.

The first blow was the withdrawal of Nilesh Kumbhani’s candidature for the Lok Sabha seat due to apparent discrepancies in the proposers’ signatures discovered by the district returning officer. On Sunday, the nomination form for Congress’s alternate candidate, Suresh Padsala, was also turned down.

“Tanashah ki asli ‘Surat’ ek baar phir desh ke saame hai! (The true face of the dictator is once again in front of the country!)” Gandhi said in a post on X.

“Taking away the right of the people to choose their leader is another step towards destroying the Constitution of Baba Saheb Ambedkar,” he added, asserting that the ongoing Lok Sabha elections are not just to form a government but an election to “save the country” and to “protect the Constitution.”