NewDelhi : A day after The Indian Express reported on the unprecedented rupture within the Election Commission, Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, demanded Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar\u2019s resignation and said all elections in the country are \u201crigged\u201d.Addressing a press conference on Thursday, he referred to the Express report that has prompted a united Opposition offensive against the Chief Election Commissioners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gandhi started by showing video clips of speeches by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in which they are seen saying how the BJP will remain in power for a long time.\u201cI come from a political family. No political leader can say or make such statements. In India, there is a force called anti-incumbency\u2026 It doesn\u2019t spare anybody. Indira Gandhi ji won the Bangladesh war. And within a year or two, massive anti-incumbency\u2026 The same happens to leader after leader. (But) for some reason, it doesn\u2019t happen to Narendra Modi, Mr Shah, BJP,\u201d he said.\u201cStates swing\u2026 We can understand the popularity of a person, the performance of a government. But we can\u2019t understand how anti-incumbency disappears. It doesn\u2019t exist in North Korea\u2026 There is no democracy where anti- incumbency doesn\u2019t work. We are looking for answers to where it went here. And we have found answers,\u201d he said.The Congress leader said the laws are made by people chosen through votes. \u201cIf the vote has been destroyed, then our Constitution has been destroyed. It no longer has power. If our Constitution is destroyed, our laws are illegal, and our institutions are attacked.The sacred belief in elections, he said, is dying. \u201cIf tomorrow, BJP sweeps elections, no one will believe it,\u201d he said.\u201cWe have been saying it again and again that there is a problem with the vote. The Election Commission is the institutional protector of this vote. It is their responsibility to protect the vote,\u201d he said, adding, \u201call elections are being rigged.\u201dGandhi went back to recount how the Prime Minister and the Home Minister bypassed his opinion to elevate Gyanesh Kumar as the Chief Election Commissioner.Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi were appointed under a 2023 Act by a selection panel comprising the Prime Minister, the Union Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.In March 2024, the Opposition member, Congress\u2019s Adhir Chowdhury, recorded a dissent over the appointment process \u2013 which gives the Centre a majority \u2013 when Sandhu and Kumar were named Election Commissioners. In February last year, Gandhi recorded his dissent when Kumar was elevated as poll panel chief.\u201cWe are sitting in a place where we have never been. Our elections are fundamentally broken\u2026 And this is the first time in independent India that we are here,\u201d he said.Demanding Kumar\u2019s resignation, Gandhi said, \u201cThis thing you have done is against the Indian nation. This is an attack against the Constitution. There are going to be consequences to this. We are not going to let democracy be destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe people will be punished. The two Election Commissioners have done a wise thing. I appreciate it. Mr Kumar should turn approver. That would be an act of nationalism. We know what has happened, and we will reveal it,\u201d Gandhi said.He said Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Shah \u201cwill be investigated\u201d. \u201cThey are at the top of the conspiracy. This is an act against the Indian state and its people. We can\u2019t sit silently,\u201d he said.\u201cThese are deshdrohis (traitors). A person who attacks the vote is that. I am not saying this lightly. For three years, I\u2019ve been saying this. I have used facts. The fact is that the Prime Minister and the Home Minister have attacked the democratic architecture of this country,\u201d Gandhi said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NewDelhi : A day after The Indian Express reported on the unprecedented rupture within the Election Commission, Rahul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samajaina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samajaina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samajaina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samajaina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samajaina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/samajaina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2697,"href":"https:\/\/samajaina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2696\/revisions\/2697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samajaina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samajaina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samajaina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samajaina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}