‘How does anti-incumbency disappear?’: Rahul Gandhi alleges ‘vote chori’, calls for CEC’s resignation

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi on Thursday (September 24) launched a sharp attack on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and the Narendra Modi government over the functioning of the Election Commission of India (ECI).

Gandhi demanded that Gyanesh Kumar resign immediately and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah were the “main conspirators”. He also called for an investigation against them.

Addressing a press conference on the functioning of the ECI following media reports related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, Gandhi said the issue was not limited to the vote.

“The thing to understand here is that if the vote has been destroyed, then our Constitution has been destroyed,” Gandhi said.

He added that the Constitution would no longer have its power or function if the vote was destroyed.

“If our Constitution has been destroyed, our laws are illegal,” he said. “And if our laws are illegal, our institutions are meaningless.”

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The development comes amid a growing row over the functioning of the Election Commission of India (ECI), following fresh allegations and political exchanges over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.

The Indian Express reported that the Goa Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) wrote to authorities in Delhi eight times in seven days seeking access to certain facilities but received no response.

The report came after an earlier media report claimed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, who work with the CEC, raised objections at least 14 times over 10 months to decisions and orders linked to the SIR process.

Rahul Gandhi questions anti-incumbency

Gandhi also questioned what he described as the disappearance of anti-incumbency in several states.

“Haryana swings from one party to another for 50 years. Suddenly anti-incumbency disappears,” he said.

He then cited Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, saying that anti-incumbency had also “disappeared” in these states.

“We can understand the popularity of a person, and the performance of a government, but we cannot understand how anti-incumbency disappears,” Gandhi said.

The Congress leader further compared the absence of anti-incumbency with countries he cited as examples of non-democratic systems.

“Anti-incumbency does not exist in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It does not exist in North Korea,” he said, adding, “There is no democracy on this planet where anti-incumbency does not exist.”

Gandhi said the vote, protected by the Election Commission, was directly connected to the functioning of the Constitution, laws, and institutions.

"From the vote, which is supposed to be protected by the Election Commission, our Constitution gets its power. From the Constitution, our laws are made, and from our laws emerge our institutions. This is a chain... If the vote has been destroyed, then our Constitution has been destroyed... If our Constitution has been destroyed, our laws are illegal. If our laws are illegal, our institutions are meaningless," he said.