‘Bid to divert attention from impending loss in Bihar polls’: BJP slams Rahul Gandhi’s Haryana voter fraud claims

“Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party keep saying something or the other about these bogus photographs, names, bogus issues… Today, he was narrating a tale from Haryana instead of Bihar, where polling is scheduled to take place,” Rijiju said.

“This reveals that they know that they have no hope in Bihar. So, to divert attention, they have brought up the issue of Haryana. By citing ridiculous things, a presentation has been made. I do not want to refer to it because it was all fake. He spoke about a foreigner woman. He goes abroad during the elections himself, slips away to Cambodia, Thailand during the Parliament session,” the minister added.

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On Wednesday, Gandhi had shared details from what he said were the “H files”, alleging that while the Congress lost the Haryana elections last year by 22,779 votes, 25 lakh votes were stolen in the polls using five different methods.

Alleging that the LOP was acting as per “inspiration from abroad”, Rijiju sought to advise the Raebareli MP to “speak only on serious issues instead of frivolous ones”.

‘NDA did not shed tears on losing polls’

Questioning Gandhi’s decision to cite exit and opinion poll estimates, Rijiju said these were prone to variation, adding that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which was predicting a win for itself in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, did not start shedding tears when the actual results proved otherwise.

“We did not abuse the Election Commission. We accepted it and congratulated the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the Congress’s allies. In a democracy, whether it is victory or defeat, it has to be accepted…after this, they came back again twice, and we sat in the Opposition. We did not abuse the Election Commission, or the opinion polls,” Rijiju said.

“We have been fighting continuously and have been victorious because we have earned the people’s trust… We have never abused the courts, never insulted the Election Commission, questioned the democratic system of our nation… This person goes abroad and speaks against our country, insults our system, our judiciary, our democratic framework, our institutions…They will obviously lose the elections since they don’t go among the people, but keep roaming abroad,” he added.

‘Conspiracy to defame India with anti-national forces’

Replying specifically to the LOP’s charge against Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini on the basis of a statement that he was confident of winning the Assembly elections because the BJP had a “good system”, Rijiju said this was a reference to the party’s organisational structure.

The Congress had won Assembly polls in several states along with other Opposition parties, Rijiju said, citing non-NDA governments in Telangana, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and asked why these wins were not being questioned.

He also sought to come down heavily on the senior Congress leader’s remarks related to Gen Z citizens, accusing the LOP of acting as per an anti-national conspiracy.

“He is talking about trying to provoke Gen Z? The people of our country are intelligent. The entire generation of youth, the new generation, is standing with Modi-ji. This is because while the whole world is going through an economic slowdown, India, with a growth rate of more than 7 per cent, has transformed into the fastest growing economy,” he said.

“The game that Rahul Gandhi is playing, the conspiracy he is hatching with anti-national forces to defame our country will never succeed,” he added.