Launching a broadside against the BJP and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in the wake of reports that the objections of Election Commissioners, including on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls, were being ignored, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi has said votes are being stolen, which renders the laws made by MPs illegal. 

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday, Gandhi termed Kumar a traitor, demanded his resignation and warned that the Congress would not remain silent and watch democracy in India “being destroyed”. 

Pointing to statements by Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the BJP would remain in power for 30 years and that the NDA would cross 400 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress MP said no political leader could be so confident in a democracy because of “a fundamental force” called anti-incumbency.

“Indira Gandhi was at the height of her popularity after she won the Bangladesh war (in 1971) and then faced massive anti-incumbency and pressure within a year or two. The same thing happens to leader after leader, to Congress leaders and to regional parties. But, for some reason, it does not happen to PM Modi, Amit Shah and the BJP,” he claimed.

“Haryana swings from one party to another for 50 years, but suddenly anti-incumbency disappears. Maharashtra swings; suddenly that disappears. Uttar Pradesh swings, from the Samajwadi Party to the Bahujan Samaj Party, that also disappears. And this has been a fundamental question for us. We can understand the popularity of a person. We can understand the performance of a government. But we cannot understand how anti-incumbency disappears,” he added.

This question, he said, vexed the Congress for quite some time, until it came up with the answer – vote chori, or vote theft. 

“Because from the vote, which is supposed to be protected by the Election Commission, our Constitution gets its power. From the Constitution, our laws are made. And from our laws emerge our institutions. This is a chain, and this chain defines modern India. The thing to understand here is that if the vote has been destroyed, then our Constitution has been destroyed. It no longer has its power, and it no longer functions. If our Constitution has been destroyed, our laws are illegal. And if our laws are illegal, our institutions are meaningless. From vote chori comes kanoon chori, and from that comes sanstha chori (the theft of laws and institutions),” he asserted. 

The BJP hit back at the Rae Bareli MP, calling his press conference a damp squib and him a “frustrated leader who is not able to win people’s support through democratic means”.

“Loktantra ki chor Congress is frustrated as the Gandhi-Vadra family is democratically made to sit in the Opposition by the people of India,” said BJP Spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari.