New Delhi: Mounting a no-holds-barred attack, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar were “deshdrohis” (traitors) as they “destroyed” India’s vote, and demanded that the CEC should immediately resign.
The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha advised Kumar to turn “approver”, while noting that election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had done a good thing by accepting in a way that “vote chori” is happening.
Alleging that all elections are “rigged” and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls were “completely fake”, Gandhi asserted that Modi and Shah would be investigated for what they have done to this country.
Slamming Kumar, he said what the CEC has done is an act against the Indian nation.
“This is an attack on the Constitution and the legal structure of the country. You were supposed to ensure that the vote was protected. We have enough information to prove this with certainty. There are going to be consequences to this. We are not going to let democracy be destroyed and sit silent. Those responsible will be punished,” Gandhi said at a press conference at the Indira Bhawan here.
Gandhi said his suggestion to Kumar is that he should turn “approver” as that would be an act of nationalism.
In legal terms, an approver is usually an accused who testifies as a witness for the prosecution.
“The prime minister and Amit Shah are both going to be investigated for what has been done. Without any doubt, both the PM and Amit Shah, are at the top of this conspiracy and they are going to be investigated for what they have done to this country,” Gandhi said and added that this is an act against the Indian state and its people.
“We refuse to sit silent while this happens. These are ‘deshdrohis (traitors)’. A person who attacks the vote and fundamentally destroys India’s democratic institutions is nothing other than a ‘deshdrohi’,” Gandhi said.
The former Congress chief also showed on screen pictures of Modi, Shah, industrialist Gautam Adani, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Principal Secretary to the prime minister P K Mishra and Gyanesh Kumar under the header “conspirators”.
Under the header “pawns”, photographs of the likes of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, former education minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Piyush Goyal were shown.
The fact is that the prime minister and the home minister of this country have attacked and destroyed the democratic architecture of India, Gandhi said.
He also played out a few videos and asked people to listen to the tone of Modi and Shah. In the videos, Shah is heard saying the BJP will be in power for 30 years and the prime minister raising the slogan ‘Abki Baar 400 Paar’.
No political leader who operates in a democratic environment can make such statements, Gandhi said.
In India, there is a fundamental force called anti-incumbency which starts to resist and it does not spare anybody, he said.
“Indira Gandhi wins the Bangladesh War and within a year or two, massive pressure mounts due to anti-incumbency. It happens to leader after leader. It does not happen to Modi, Shah and the BJP – now we know the answer to it,” Gandhi said.
“We can understand the popularity of a person, the performance of a government but anti-incumbency completely disappearing? It does not exist in Iraq of Saddam Hussain and in North Korea,” he argued.
Vote is the foundation of our democracy, Gandhi said, adding that the vote protected by the EC protects the Constitution.
“If the vote has been destroyed then our Constitution has been destroyed, it no longer has the power. If the Constitution is destroyed laws are illegal and our institutions are meaningless,” he said.
Gandhi said the 2024 Lok Sabha election was “completely fake”.
“The elections before that were also fake. Even the assembly elections, there was rigging,” he said, adding that there was evidence to back this.
“From ‘vote chori’, comes ‘kanoon chori’ and from that comes ‘sanstha chori’,” he said.
The country already knows that their vote has been destroyed and it is known who hatched this conspiracy, Gandhi said.
“Conspirators stole the vote, laws were stolen through vote theft, the country’s institutions were stolen…Not only that – the laws made after the vote theft are illegal,” Gandhi said.
If the BJP, Modi, and Gyanesh Kumar destroy India’s voting system and the legal structure, the Congress and the opposition will not sit quietly.
“Remember — traitors will definitely be punished,” he asserted.
Earlier, Gandhi said enemies of the Constitution have been exposed and justice will be served.
“The enemies of the Constitution have been exposed. Justice will be served. I will address a press conference at 4 pm,” he said on X, using the hashtag ‘Vote Chori’.
Gandhi’s assertions come after The Indian Express revealed that questions were repeatedly raised on issues related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls within the three-member Election Commission (EC) by two of the three election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.
The national rollout of the SIR has been under the supervision of all three commissioners. But Sandhu and Joshi have formally objected, on record, at least 14 times over the last 10 months four times on a single day to decisions taken and orders issued, they say, without their knowledge, according to the report in the English daily.
