With barely two-and-a-half weeks left before the first vote is cast in the 17th Lok Sabha elections, the Opposition INDIA bloc rally sent out a message Sunday that is set to harden the faultlines in the fractious campaign that lies ahead: it raised doubts about the fairness of the election process itself.
“If the BJP wins this match-fixing election and changes the Constitution after that, it will set the country on fire… this country will not survive…This is not an ordinary election. This election is to save the country, protect our Constitution,” Rahul said.
Indeed, this was the central issue in the “save-democracy” Opposition rally at the Ramlila ground. Convened specifically to protest the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on March 21, leader after leader alleged that democracy would be in peril and the Constitution in danger if the Modi government is voted back to power
In attendance was the top leadership of the Congress — party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra — besides NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Uddhav Thackeray.
Almost all of them accused the Government of functioning in a “dictatorial and arrogant manner”. Referring to the BJP’s “ab ki baar 400 paar” slogan, senior RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav said, “They are raising slogans…setting targets… aisa lag raha hai ki pehle se hi EVM setting ho chuka hai.”
In fact, three of the five points in the charter of demands read out at the end of the rally by Priyanka were regarding fairness of elections.
The demands were: “The Election Commission of India must ensure a level playing field in Lok Sabha elections; ECI must stop the coercive action by IT, ED and CBI against Opposition political parties; immediate release of Hemant Soren and Arvind Kejriwal; coercive action to financially strangulate political parties in the Opposition during the elections must stop immediately; an SIT, supervised by the Supreme Court, must be instituted to investigate the allegations of quid pro quo, extortion and money laundering by BJP using the Electoral Bonds.”
Since its inception in June 2023, the Opposition grouping had often accused the Modi government of stifling democracy and flouting Constitutional norms. But this is perhaps the first time that some of the leading lights of the alliance have, from the INDIA bloc platform, raised concerns on the fairness of the ongoing election exercise.
“You must have heard about match-fixing. When a match is won illegally putting pressure on umpires, buying players, intimidating the captain…it is called match-fixing in cricket. We have Lok Sabha polls before us. Who selected the umpires? Narendra Modi. Before the match started, two players (Kejriwal and Soren) from our team were arrested… Narendra Modi is trying to do match-fixing in these polls,” Rahul said.
“Match fixing ki ja rahi hai…the entire country can see it. … Election Commission ke logon ko Narendra Modi ji ne baithaya…. two chief ministers have been put in jail… you have frozen our bank accounts… you want the Opposition not to fight the elections… that is why you have frozen the bank accounts of the Congress, installed your people in the EC… you are pressuring the judiciary… kyun ki aap chahte ho ki match fix ho… Samvidhan radd kiya jaaye and you remain in power,” he said.
He said the BJP will not be able to cross 400 seats as it claims “without EVMs, match-fixing, pressuring and buying the social media and the press…they will not even cross even 180. All of them put together”. Rahul’s attack came against the backdrop of the Congress’s claim that the Income Tax authorities have served its notices raising a tax demand for a total of Rs 3,567 crore.
Addressing a press conference with Sonia and Kharge earlier this week, Rahul had accused the BJP of crippling the party financially on the eve of elections and had said that the “idea that India is a democracy is a lie”. On Sunday, he went many steps further.
“This match fixing is not just being done by Narendra Modi alone. It is being done by Modi and three or four of India’s billionaires together…that is the truth,” he said, adding that the match-fixing is being done to snatch the Constitution from the poor people of India.
“India cannot survive without the Constitution…Our Constitution is the voice of the people, it is India’s heartbeat. India will not survive without it. Alag alag states ho jayenge…And that is their aim…. Agar Hindustan main match-fixing ka chunav BJP jeete aur uske baad samvidhan ko unhone badla, toh is poore desh main aag lagne ja rahi hai. Yeh desh nahi bachega (if the BJP wins this match-fixing election and changes the Constitution after that, it will set the country on fire, this country will not survive… This is not an ordinary election. This election is to save the country, protect our Constitution,” he said.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra invoked the Ramayana to make a political point: “When Lord Ram fought for truth, he did not have power, resources or even a chariot. Ravan had chariots, resources, army and golden Lanka but Lord Ram had truth, hope, belief, love, kindness, modesty, patience, courage and he had truth. I want to tell those in power and Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the message of Lord Ram’s life is that power is not permanent, power comes and goes and arrogance gets shattered one day.”
Significantly, most leaders made mere passing references to bread-and-butter issues like unemployment, price rise and MSP for farmers keeping their focus on the day’s democracy-in-peril theme they had chosen.
Thackeray said there was a concern that the country was heading towards dictatorship but it was not a concern anymore as it is the truth. Arguing that the “one party, one person” government has become a threat to the country, he said there was a need for a coalition government which respects and honours the aspirations of every state and region.
Tejashwi, too, argued there was an “undeclared Emergency” in the country and alleged the government has become “dictatorial and arrogant”. “They have no faith in the Constitution. They want to implement Nagpuria law…they want to implement the RSS agenda,” he said.
While DMK chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin — whose speech was read out by his party colleague and Rajya Sabha MP Tiruchi Siva — said that “history shows that nobody has succeeded through tyranny” and that “people will never allow the ugly play of tyrants, Trinamool Congress’s Derek O’Brien framed the fight as “BJP versus democracy”.
O’Brien’s party colleague and TMC Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose said the Trinamool Congress is firmly with the INDIA bloc. “We know that there is a big challenge before the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal…your popular leader has been sent to jail… this is dictatorship and not democracy,” she said.
“The leaders of our INDIA bloc should continue our protest firmly. If Modi comes to power again, the democratic and Constitutional characteristics of India would be uprooted,” Stalin said.
The Opposition bloc ensured that Kejriwal’s wife Sunita and Hemant Soren’s wife Kalpana were on stage and addressed the gathering. Sunita, in fact, read out six poll promises that she said her husband had drafted on behalf of the alliance. Among them were free electricity for the poor, setting up Mohalla clinics in every village, and multi-speciality hospitals in every district. Kalpana said she represented the voice of half of India’s population and the nine percent tribal community.
Those who addressed the rally included: National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah, Left leaders Sitaram Yechury, D Raja, Dipankar Bhattacharya and G Devarajan.