The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called it a “victory of the people” as massive police action across Delhi, and even beyond, aimed to scuttle a protest call by the youth Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) over alleged electoral fraud on Saturday. Much of the attack by BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad, however, focused on Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha) Rahul Gandhi and the recent protests by the Congress-led INDIA bloc.
“India is not a banana republic. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, this country has never bowed and never will,” Prasad said, defending the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, the demand for whose resignation is at the centre of the wave of recent protests.
“Based on the events of today and the preceding three days, two things have become clear,” he said.
“One, Indian democracy has thwarted attempts to incite anarchy. Two, the country will be governed by Parliament, not by the streets,” he explained, citing bypoll victories of the BJP-led NDA’s wins in Assam, West Bengal and Puducherry on Friday. “All these elections took place while this entire mischief was unfolding in Delhi over the past several days. The BJP wishes to particularly highlight that this stellar performance in Bengal, Assam, and Puducherry occurred while a movement for anarchy was underway in Delhi and other parts of the country,” he argued.
“We are not opposed to protests, but you have weaponised street protests because of your electoral defeats,” he said, aiming at the Congress by name, though he did not name the CJP as such.
“These defeated and frustrated people have been troubling the people of Delhi for the past three to four days and weaponising street protests. But we are proud of the people of India for rejecting and foiling their conspiracy,” he added, claiming that the protests do not have popular support.
Over 1,000 people, including CJP’s founder Abhijeet Dipke and other leaders, were detained in Delhi on Saturday morning. Four former chief ministers — AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal, TMC’s Mamata Banerjee, and the Left’s Pinarayi Vijayan and Manik Sarkar — were also detained during the day, as was AISA president Neha Bora. The huge police and paramilitary deployment across Delhi managed to prevent them from reaching the Jantar Mantar protest site, citing a denial of permission.
Rahul Gandhi, who is in Chennai for a student outreach event, held protests for four days this week, and the INDIA bloc also handed a memorandum to President Droupadi Murmu.
On Rahul Gandhi’s assertion after that meeting on Friday that the President “did not deny” allegations of “vote chori”, Ravi Shankar Prasad said his claim was an insult to the President’s office.
The Congress memo carried four demands: Resignation of Gyanesh Kumar and repeal of the 2023 law that provides life-long immunity to the CEC and ECs; immediate suspension of the SIR and restoration of all 13.3 crore voters deleted from electoral rolls; a return to paper ballots for all elections; and to repeal all Assembly elections over the last two years “in which conclusive evidence of vote chori has been presented”.
