As Priyanka, Rahul Gandhi target 3 ECs at Delhi rally, Congress sends an unmistakable signal

Although Rahul has targeted CEC Kumar in his press conferences in the past, this is the first time that the Gandhi siblings have attacked the three together taking their names from a public platform. The attack signals the Congress’s intention to intensify their campaign against the EC despite the issue coming a cropper in Bihar Assembly elections.

Although the Congress had toyed with the idea of giving a notice in Parliament to bring a motion for the removal of the CEC, it did not go ahead as all the opposition parties were not on board. But with the EC going ahead with the SIR exercise in many states, including TMC-ruled West Bengal and DMK-governed Tamil Nadu, the Congress feels linking its vote theft campaign with the SIR can have a political resonance.

Among those present at the rally were Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, chief ministers of Congress-ruled states, CWC members, state unit chiefs, MPs and MLAs from across India. The party also displayed sacks of five-crore signatures against “vote chori” it had collected during a nationwide drive.

Rahul said: “In Andaman and Nicobar, Mohan Bhagwat gave a statement. I changed my speech plan after hearing the statement. Gandhiji used to say that truth is most important. In our religion, truth is considered most important… Listen to Mohan Bhagwat’s statement. He says that the world sees power and not truth. One who has power is given importance. This is Mohan Bhagwat’s thinking. This ideology is of the RSS. India’s ideology and ours… Hindu religion’s ideology and every religion’s ideology says that truth is most important.”

“This is the fight between truth and lies. I am giving you a guarantee from this stage that with truth, we will remove the Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and RSS government,” he said.

Speaking about his three press conferences on “vote chori”, Rahul said the election commissioners “gave no answers” to the questions he had raised.

Rahul said everyone in the country knows that Narendra Modi and Amit Shah win elections by stealing votes. “It may take time, but in India, truth will win. Amit Shah and Modiji can give speeches. In the end, truth wins in this country. We will remove you through truth – the path shown to us by Mahatma Gandhi — not through hatred, violence. But through truth and non-violence, we will defeat Narendra Modi and Amit Shah,” he said.

Rahul said that his sister (Priyanaka) was “right in saying that Modi’s confidence is over. He (Modi) knows that their ‘vote chori’ has been caught. Some time is left… the truth will be known to the country… Had they not been stealing votes, you would have removed them from power in five minutes,” said Rahul.

Priyanka Gandhi spoke about the importance of the vote in a democracy. “When we see that every institution of the country is being trampled on, it is important that each and every one of you stand up,” she said.

“We see in Parliament that in each session, only one or two debates happen. When Rahul ji and Kharge ji raised the issue of elections and SIR and said we want a debate on it, they panicked…They don’t have the courage to debate those. Why? Because if they fight one fair election using ballot paper, they know they can’t win,” said Priyanka.

She said the ECI kept its eyes closed during the Bihar elections when the “BJP gave Rs 10,000” to women. “If this is not ‘vote chori’, then what is,” she said.

“Gyanesh Kumar, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, and Vivek Joshi. Repeat after me. The country won’t forget these three names. No matter what they do to protect them. One day, they will have to give answers to the people. How they snatched away our right to vote, how they conspired,” she said.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge attacked the BJP, and said those indulging in “vote chori” are “gaddaars” and needed to be removed from power to save the voting right and the Constitution.