New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said he will soon release an “atom bomb” of data that will send shockwaves through the election system, alleging that it is “already dead” and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were “rigged”.
Addressing the inaugural function of the day-long legal conclave on the theme ‘Constitutional Challenges: Perspectives and Pathways’, he also claimed that the prime minister is sitting on his chair with a “thin majority” and had there been a difference of a few seats, he would have not been there.
Gandhi cited data collected by the Congress from an assembly constituency in Karnataka, where the party checked the photographs and names of electors physically and reportedly found out that 1.5 lakh votes were “fake” out of a total of 6.5 lakh voters.
“You will see the shockwave that is going to go through the electoral system when we release this data. It is literally like an atom bomb,” the Congress leader claimed.
“The truth is that the election system in India is already dead. Please remember one thing that the prime minister of India enjoys a very slim majority. If 10-15 seats were rigged, and we suspect the actual figures to be closer to 70-80 to 100, he would not have been the prime minister of the country,” the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha claimed.
“In the coming few days, we are going to prove to you without any doubt how a Lok Sabha election can be rigged, and it was rigged,” he alleged.
Gandhi will make public details of the “anomalies” in voter list in the constituency in Karnataka on August 5 at Bengaluru’s Freedom park.
Sharpening his attack on the Election Commission, the former Congress chief said, “It’s very clear that the institution that protects this (Constitution), and defends it has been obliterated and taken over.”
Gandhi also said that he did not have the proof earlier and that is why he could not make such statements before.
“But, I am making this statement confidently now because I have 100 per cent proof. And, whoever I have shown it to has fallen off the chair. They literally said how it is possible. But it is possible, it’s happening, literally,” he claimed.
Gandhi said he has been speaking about the election system as he always had a suspicion that there was something wrong.
“Right from 2014, I had a suspicion that there is something wrong, something is not adding up. I had suspicions about the Gujarat Assembly elections… About this ability to score sweeping victories. Congress doesn’t get a single seat in Rajasthan, doesn’t get a single seat in Madhya Pradesh, doesn’t get a single seat in Gujarat… This was surprising to me,” he said.
Gandhi said in Maharashtra three formidable parties “suddenly evaporated” in assembly elections after winning clearly in the Lok Sabha elections a few months ago.
Noting that it was in Maharashtra that started to look seriously into electoral malpractice, he said, “We found it clearly that one crore new voters showed up between Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha and bulk of those votes go to the BJP. Still, we didn’t have clear proof. When I mentioned to my allies that a clear cheating had happened. But, we don’t have proof. Now, I say with absolutely on doubt that we have proof.”
“Now, we have such proof that will show the whole country that the institution of the Election Commission does not exist, that it has disappeared.”
Gandhi said it has taken six months of non-stop proof to find the proof, because the Election Commission does not give us electronic versions of the voter lists and one will be shocked to know that when they give booth-wise paper versions of voter lists that cannot be scanned.
“Why would the Election Commission scan-protect copy-protect the voter lists? You can see with zero doubt now on how the Lok Sabha election was stolen. This is on paper with physical paper voter lists, where out of 6.5 lakh voters, 1.5 lakh are fake,” he claimed.
Gandhi also claimed the Congress had a document on the Rafale deal, that said clearly that the prime minister’s office and the NSA “interfered” in the Rafale deal and “damaged” the Rafale deal.
“This document itself would have brought down any government in any country of the world. Nothing happened. You know where the document went, you know where the document died,” he said.
The former Congress chief said he is fighting 30 cases and anyone who fights the regime, any political person, NGOs, civil society knows the moment they oppose, they will be attacked.
Narrating his conversation with his sister, Gandhi said, “My sister told me I was playing with fire, and I said I know I’m playing with fire, and I’ll continue to play with fire. I am not scared of playing with fire…Eventually, like most of you, I am going to end up in the fire.”
“My family taught me not to be scared of cowards. The most cowardly thing you can ever do is to be scared of a coward. And that’s exactly what we’re dealing with. The ruling ideology is based to a great extent on cowardice,” the Congress leader claimed.
He said the Constitution is a manifestation of India’s identity, its culture. This is not written in 1947 or 1950, this is 3,000 years old and Buddha, Narayana guru, Periyar, speaks through this country, he noted.
“This is our blood and how dare you attack our blood. We are not just defending this red book, we are defending our way of life,” he said.
Gandhi also asked which Hindu tradition says that one should beat up a Muslim child, lynch anyone and not a single tradition of ours say it.
“These people are not attacking our politics, they are attacking us, our religion… they are attacking Hinduism,” he alleged.
Gandhi also lauded the role played by lawyers since the freedom struggle and said “We would not have got freedom if the lawyers of this country would not have fought. All this Constitution would not have been here, if it were not for the lawyers.”
He said it was the legal fraternity who built the legal architecture and it is this that is being destroyed and systematically unravelled on every front.
Gandhi also suggested that just like every hospital has a blood bank, “These days, due to the nature of the RSS and BJP, legal time has become like blood, and many people need it. My suggestion is to get a thousand lawyers to commit a certain amount of time to defend the Indian Constitution, and anyone who needs access to this legal time can come.”
