Stepping up his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi said Sunday that the CEC would be jailed for “treason” in the future over his role in “vote chori”, and that Modi and Shah would face legal action.
Addressing the Opposition INDIA bloc’s rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, Gandhi said, “Amit Shah said Narendra Modi is not going anywhere. I am telling you Narendra Modi cannot go anywhere. Even if he wants to go, we will not let him. Narendra Modi ji and Amit Shah ji, understand this: after Gyanesh Kumar, we will stand against you and don’t forget that for the vote chori you have done, there will be legal action against you and Narendra Modi.”
The rally, which saw Opposition parties mobilise workers from other states, was organised to demand the CEC’s resignation and protest against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Gandhi said removing Kumar as the CEC would be “the first step to getting the country on the right track”. He alleged that “without Gyanesh Kumar, Narendra Modi wouldn’t have become PM and Amit Shah wouldn’t be Home Minister”.
“In 2024, there was a 3% difference between NDA and us. It was an illegal election, a stolen election. I am not saying this, the Election Commission is. They removed 13.3 crore voters from the list. That is one in every seven Indians, 15 per cent of India’s electorate. What I say comes true. I said something about Covid and it came true. I am saying Gyanesh Kumar will be removed as CEC. He will go to jail,” he said.
“This is not a regular chori. It is a theft of the voice of every person. In legal parlance, it is called the rarest of rare cases. It is called treason,” he said.
Referring to the turnout at Ramlila Maidan, Gandhi said, “This is not the voice of a political party or leaders but the voice of youth, farmers, labourers, and it is declaring that ‘we will not let democracy and Constitution be destroyed in India’.”
Targeting the RSS, he claimed it had “captured all institutions”. The Opposition, he said, would not perpetrate violence against the Sangh or the BJP. “Be it Modi, Shah or Gyanesh Kumar, we will not perpetrate violence against them. We will not attack the RSS or BJP people. We will not spread hatred, we will work with love, but we will not let them destroy the Constitution,” he said.
Before the LoP spoke, leaders of other Opposition parties took to the stage to target the BJP and the government. After Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge alleged that the PM “selects voters” instead of voters electing him, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav echoed him, alleging that “BJP wants only its members to be voters and citizens of India”.
INDIA bloc rally | “We do not hate Narendra Modi, Amit Shah or Gyanesh Kumar. For me, there is no enemy. Neither Narendra Modi, nor Amit Shah, nor Gyanesh Kumar. But the voice of every citizen of India is more important to me, even more important than religion”: Rahul Gandhi
Yadav said the Ramlila Maidan had turned into the “Haldighati of democracy” – referring to the 1576 battle in which Akbar’s forces faced off against Maharana Pratap – and said those who had come to power at the Centre through Uttar Pradesh would also exit from there.
“UP wallahs (people), who are good at welcoming, are better at giving send-offs,” said the SP president, taking a swipe at Modi whose constituency is Varanasi.
Referring to the voter deletions in UP, he said, “As this public meeting was being organised, the BJP stated that votes of 1.27 crore Hindu brethren in Uttar Pradesh had been deleted, which translates to a reduction of 31,000 votes in every Assembly constituency. It is because of the INDIA bloc that BJP is now realising that their votes are also being cut.”
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee alleged that West Bengal was a “victim of the circumstances created by SIR” and urged the Cockroach Janta Party and the youth to join forces with the Opposition.
“I am expressing solidarity with the CJP leadership and Gen Z, for their solidarity, support and fighting spirit,” Banerjee said.
“We will not spare them. We will fight with our lives. They looted Bengal, but we will save democracy and bring it back,” she said, describing SIR as “Special Intensive Relief to a party like the BJP”.
RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav said the Ramlila Maidan was known for hosting Ramlila performances marking Ram’s win over Ravan which is retold in the Ramayana. “But today, we are doing Mahabharat here. When Shakuni rolled the dice, he rigged it. If Shakuni is playing his game today, then we have to make this Kurukshetra,” he said.
The Left was represented on the stage by CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby and CPI(M-L) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya.
While Baby said the battle against alleged vote theft was the “second Independence struggle”, Bhattacharya alleged that the BJP had turned the country into a police state.
National Conference president Farooq Abdullah questioned the claim that many voters deleted during the SIR were infiltrators, asking whether Hindu voters allegedly removed from the rolls in Uttar Pradesh were also “Pakistanis”.
