It is very clear that you have captured the institution. I have shown the mechanism of that capture, I am also showing you how the Election Commission is doing things that are completely out of line: Leader of Opposition Shri Rahul Gandhi

Shri Rahul Gandhi, Leader of Opposition (Lok Sabha), spoke in Lok Sabha during Discussion on Election Reforms, on December 9, 2024

Shri Rahul Gandhi: Thank you, Speaker Sir, for letting me speak on this really important matter. Speaker Sir, have you ever wondered why Mahatma Gandhi laid such emphasis on Khadi, why was it that he framed the entire Indian freedom struggle around the concept of Khadi, and why is that he only wore Khadi? Because Khadi is not just a cloth, Khadi is the expression of the people of India. It is the imagination, it is the sentiment, it is the productive force of the people … it is the expression of the people of India.
Speaker Sir, whichever state you go to, you will find different fabrics. There is Himachali cap, Assamese Gamcha, Benarasi saree, Kanchipuram saree, Naga jacket, and you will find that all these fabrics represent the people.

It’s the same when the Nagas wear their jacket. When they come and see us, they make us wear the jacket because they want us to be embraced by the fabric. Speaker Sir, these fabrics are beautiful but if you look slightly deeper and you look closely at the fabric, you will find that each one of them has thousands of little threads embracing each other. No one thread is superior to another thread; they all come together. The threads cannot protect you; the threads cannot keep you warm. But when they come together as a fabric, they can keep you warm, they can protect you, they can express what you have in the heart.

Speaker Sir, our nation is also a fabric. It’s a fabric made up of 1.4 billion people and the fabric is woven together by the vote. Let me repeat it, it is a fabric of 1.4 billion people and it is woven together by the vote. Everything that we see… in fact this House where I am standing today, the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, Vidhan Sabhas across the country, Panchayats across the country… none of them would exist if the vote did not exist.

Speaker Sir, it is the idea that every thread, every person in the Union of India is equal that disturbs my friends in the RSS. They are happy to see the fabric, but they cannot stand the idea that every single person in the fabric of our country…. regardless of what religion they come from, regardless of what community they come from, regardless of what language they speak… should be equal because they fundamentally do not believe in equality. They believe in hierarchy, and they believe that they should be on top of that hierarchy.

Speaker Sir, on the 30th of January, 1948, three bullets pierced the chest of Mahatma Gandhi. Nathuram Godse assassinated the father of our nation. Today, our friends do not embrace him, today our friends have pushed him away…. it’s an uncomfortable truth. But that’s not where the project ended, you see, as I said- everything has emerged from the vote… all the institutions have emerged from the vote. So, it’s obvious that the RSS has to capture all the institutions that have emerged from vote. So, the project after Gandhi Ji’s assassination… the next step of the project was the wholesale capture of India’s institutional framework.

Speaker Sir, so after the ‘father of the nation’ was assassinated, his vision of an equal India… of an India where institutions belong to the people, had to be destroyed. And so, the process started and the RSS attempted to capture one institution after the other.

Second capture, which helps in destroying democracy, is the capture of the intelligence agencies. We have the Home Minister sitting here… the capture of the CBI, of the ID, of the Income Tax department and the systematic placements of the bureaucrats, who favour their ideology and attack the opposition and anybody who chooses to oppose the RSS… that is the second institutional capture.

And the third capture of the institution that directly controls the election system of our country- the Election Commission. Now, I am not saying this without proof. I have put forth the adequate proof about how the Election Commission is colluding with those in power to shape the elections. But I want to ask three questions first, which will make it very clear that the BJP is directing and using the Election Commission to damage India’s democracy.

The first question- Why is it that the CJI was removed from the selection panel of the Election Commission? What motivation could there be to remove the CJI? Do we not believe in the CJI? Of course, we believe in the CJI. Why is he not in that room? I sit in that room. It is so-called a democratic decision. On one side, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mr. Amit Shah… on the other side, the Leader of the Opposition. I have no voice in that room. What they decide is what happens. So, the first question- Why is the Prime Minister and Amit Shah so keen on choosing exactly who the Election Commissioner is going to be?

Second question and even more devastating question- No Prime Minister has done this in the history of India. In December, 2023… this government changed the law, they changed the law to make sure that no Election Commissioner could be punished for any action they take while they are Election Commissioner. Why would the Prime Minister and Home Minister give this gift of immunity to the Election Commissioner? why would they need to give this tremendous gift that no Prime Minister has given ever before to the Election Commissioner?

And finally, why was the law with regards to CCTVs and the data that they contain changed, why was a law put in place that allows the Election Commission to destroy CCTV footage 45 days after the election… what is the need? The answer given is- it’s a question of data. It is not a question of data; it is a question of stealing the election. Now, what is the result of this institutional capture, what is the result of controlling the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commission? First of all, we have a setup… election campaigns that are tailored for the Prime Minister- 3-month, 4-month, 5-month long campaigns are taking place, so that the Prime Minister’s schedule can be fitted into the programme.

Second, This Brazilian woman has appeared 22 times on the voter list in Haryana, and not only that, there is one woman whose name has appeared two hundred times, more than two hundred times in one booth in Haryana. And it is very clear and I have proven without doubt that the election of Haryana was stolen and the theft was ensured by the Election Commission of India… I have said it again and again and again.

Now, nowhere has the Election Commission answered my question. The Election Commission has not told me why this lady’s picture has appeared on the polling list, they have not told me why lakhs and lakhs of duplicate voters are existing, they have not told me why a BJP leader is coming from Uttar Pradesh to vote in Haryana. These are straight forward questions and there is clear proof which I have put in front of the country, but the Election Commission has no answer to these questions. And that is the result of the complete capture of the Election Commission by the people across the aisle.

By the way, you are talking about SIR in Bihar. Let me say something about SIR in Bihar. Why is it that after the SIR in Bihar, 1.2 lakh duplicate photos are existing in Bihar in the voting list? If you have cleaned up the voting list, why there are 1.2 lakh duplicates in Bihar?

Now, so what I am putting on the table is… it is very clear that you have captured the institution. I have shown the mechanism of that capture, I am also showing you how the Election Commission is doing things that are completely out of line. I am not getting any answers, right? So, now let us come to how… when we are talking about electoral reforms… electoral reforms, very simple… the point is- nobody wants to do it. The government doesn’t want to do it. What does electoral reform require? What we have been saying… No. 1- give machine-readable voter lists to all political parties one month before the election. That’s the first step.

The second step is- take back the law that allows the destructions of CCTV footage… very simple, not difficult. While you are doing that, also tell us what is the architecture of the EVM. Give us access to the EVM, let our experts go and see what is inside the EVM. Till today, we have not had access to the EVM. We are not shown the architecture of the EVM, we are not physically allowed to go and see an EVM. Give us the architecture, give us access to the EVM.

And finally, please change the law that allows the Election Commissioner to get away with whatever he wants to do… that’s all the electoral reforms you need. You know everybody says to us- India is the biggest democracy. America calls itself the oldest democracy, but the democracy that weaves together the largest number of people, the largest diversity of people, the largest number of languages, the largest number of states is this. And so, our most powerful asset… the thing that stitches together the entire concept of modern India, stitches together the fabric of modern India, brings people together, allows them to build this great nation, is being attacked by these people. They are destroying it, you know they are destroying it, I know they are destroying it, and they know that they are destroying it.

And I would like to conclude by saying that the biggest anti-national act you can do is vote chori. There is no bigger anti-national act that you can do than vote chori because when you destroy the vote, you destroy the fabric of this country, you destroy modern India, you destroy the idea of India.

So, I would like to conclude by saying vote chori is an anti-national act and those across the aisle are doing an anti-national act.

It is very unfortunate that there are many people in this country who are questioning the impartiality of the Election Commission

Manish Tiwari: He said that a debate is going on in the country on ‘One Nation, One Election’. But, if we take into account the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly, the framers of the Constitution had visualised that elections would be held in different States at different times in India after 10-12 years. This raises a big question. Whether there is any justification for ‘One Nation, One Election’? The Election Commission was given powers under Sections 324 to 329. Everyone expected the Election Commission to act as an impartial umpire. But, it is very unfortunate that there are many people in this country who are questioning the impartiality of the Election Commission today. If any maiden electoral reform is to take place in this country, it should be a reform in the law that was enacted in the year 2023. That law was made regarding the selection of members of the Election Commission. Section 7 of this law provides that the Selection Committee shall comprise three persons- the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Lok Sabha and a Cabinet Minister who is chosen by the Prime Minister. My suggestion is that two more members should be added to it. One is the Leader of the Opposition, Rajya Sabha and the other is the nominated member, Chief Justice of India. Two people will be from the government, two will be from the opposition and one will be the Chief Justice of India. Now, I come to Article 327 of the Constitution. Article 327 of the Constitution gave the Parliament the authority to make laws for the preparation of electoral rolls and delimitation of constituencies. Those laws are the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and the Registration of Electoral Rules.

Discussions on SIR are underway across the country. Very responsibly, I am saying that the Election Commission has no legal justification for conducting the SIR. There is no provision for Special Intensive Revision either in the Constitution or in the law. An authority was given to the Election Commission that if there is any discrepancy in the electoral roll in any constituency, it can carry out an SIR process to rectify it by recording the reasons in writing and after making those reasons public.

The country has the right to know how this SIR is being conducted. Now I come to the point of EVMs. Many people in the country are worried that EVMs can be tampered with and when people faith in democracy is broken, anarchy rules. With exceptional care, I am saying that there are only two ways to address the apprehensions of the people that either 100 per cent VVPAT counting takes place or the best solution is that we should go back to ballot papers. There are many countries which use EVMs. Why did they all go back to the ballot papers? The reason behind is that after all EVMs are a machine and any machine can be tampered with. Now, I come to the next point. The misuse of public money has started and with the announcement of elections or even before the elections, cash is transferred to the accounts of the people. What kind of democracy is this that the Govt. start putting money in people accounts 15 days, 20 days, one month or two months in advance before the elections?

It is a matter of concern because it is not only playing with democracy but also playing ducks and drakes with India’s revenue. I would like to propose that under Articles 292 and 293, this Parliament has the authority to fix the borrowing limits of both the Central Government and the State Government. There is a need to add one more Article 293A to it. In that article, it should be added that if the debt-to-GDP ratio of the central government or any State Government is more than 20 percent, the State government or the Union government cannot make any cash transfer. Direct cash transfers take place before elections, this should be stopped completely, because it is completely against democracy. Election Commission is acting like BJP’s election agent and an idea of independent Election Commission has ceased to exist.

The legal immunity provided to the Election Commissioners by the Modi government, questioning the motives behind all these moves

SHRI KC VENUGOPAL: Speaking in the Lok Sabha during the debate on electoral reforms on December 10, 2025, he referred to several actions of the Election Commission that, he said, reflected its partisanship and asked why the “machine-readable electoral rolls” were still not being prepared in today’s digital age. He pointed out how the Modi government had excluded the Chief Justice of India from the selection process for the Chief Election Commissioner and replaced him with the Union Home Minister. He also referred to the legal immunity provided to the Election Commissioners by the Modi government, questioning the motives behind all these moves. He said that the Commission had now been reduced to a single-party institution, buckling under the pressure of the ruling party. Reiterating Rahul Gandhi’s statement that vote theft was an anti-national act, he said the Election Commission had failed to prevent it. Rather, he noted, the Commission was further encouraging it. In the same context, he asked who will answer for and explain the deaths of the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) who died during the SIR exercise in various states. The Congress general secretary also pointed out how the investigating agencies were being used against the political opponents of the current regime. He said that the moment elections are announced, these agencies start targeting the opposition parties and their leaders. He cited how the Congress Party’s bank accounts were frozen just ahead of the 2024 General Elections by the Income Tax Department.

Displaying a copy of the EC’s 2004 SIR orders in the House, Venugopal noted that at that time, the Commission had provided six months for completing the exercise. He asked what is the urgency that the current SIR process needs to be completed within just two months.