Rahul Gandhi Demands Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s Resignation
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’s resignation and said all elections in the country are “rigged”.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, he referred to the Express report that has prompted a united Opposition offensive against the Chief Election Commissioners.
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.
“I come from a political family. No political leader can say or make such statements. In India, there is a force called anti-incumbency… It doesn’t spare anybody. Indira Gandhi ji won the Bangladesh war. And within a year or two, massive anti-incumbency… The same happens to leader after leader. (But) for some reason, it doesn’t happen to Narendra Modi, Mr Shah, BJP,” he said.
“States swing… We can understand the popularity of a person, the performance of a government. But we can’t understand how anti-incumbency disappears. It doesn’t exist in North Korea… There is no democracy where anti- incumbency doesn’t work. We are looking for answers to where it went here. And we have found answers,” he said.
The Congress leader said the laws are made by people chosen through votes. “If 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. “If tomorrow, BJP sweeps elections, no one will believe it,” he said.
“We 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,” he said, adding, “all elections are being rigged.”
Gandhi 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’s Adhir Chowdhury, recorded a dissent over the appointment process – which gives the Centre a majority – when Sandhu and Kumar were named Election Commissioners. In February last year, Gandhi recorded his dissent when Kumar was elevated as poll panel chief.
“We are sitting in a place where we have never been. Our elections are fundamentally broken… And this is the first time in independent India that we are here,” he said.
Demanding Kumar’s resignation, Gandhi said, “This 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.”
“The 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,” Gandhi said.
He said Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Shah “will be investigated”. “They are at the top of the conspiracy. This is an act against the Indian state and its people. We can’t sit silently,” he said.
“These are deshdrohis (traitors). A person who attacks the vote is that. I am not saying this lightly. For three years, I’ve 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,” Gandhi said.
