The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday fielded a dozen of its chief ministers at press conferences in their respective states to counter Leader of Opposition (Lok Sabha) Rahul Gandhi over his allegations against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar amid reports of dissent within the poll body.
The move came a day before the Congress plans to hold nationwide district-level protests demanding Gyanesh Kumar’s removal.
The Congress has said key questions remained unanswered.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said asking questions was acceptable in a democracy, apparently referring to the reported objection letters. At the same press conference, Madhya Pradesh BJP president Hemant Khandelwal accused the Congress of creating confusion among the public. Because it won there, but opposed it in Bengal after losing the election, west Bengal’s Suvendu Adhikari said the Congress supported the SIR in Kerala. Mohan Yadav, the Madhya Pradesh chief minister, said Gandhi could manage neither his party nor his family, and had therefore taken to spreading lies.
He said it was wrong to defame institutions “by presenting a note from an internal discussion as a final decision”.
She rhetorically asked whether the EC had transparency during Congress rule. He asked why the Congress had not checked facts before levelling serious allegations over the June 24, 2025 orders, about the nationwide SIR, which he said were passed with full consensus.
Uttar Pradesh’s Yogi Adityanath said Opposition parties had spread confusion over the SIR. Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma called the INDIA bloc an “alliance of losers”. “Cleansing of the voter list is necessary, because ‘booth capturing’ no longer works in the country,” Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary said. Rajasthan’s Bhajan Lal Sharma said the Opposition was spreading lies to hide its electoral defeats. Chief Minister Rekha Gupta of Delhi, where a third of the electorate was removed and a third of the remaining got notices as part of ongoing revision, said the Opposition’s stance on the issue was meant to “divert attention from its failures”.
She claimed the poll body earlier worked entirely on the Congress’s instructions.
Because prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Home Minister, Amit Shah, shielded Gyanesh Kumar, the Congress leader alleged that the two commissioners’ objection letters were not acted upon. He also claimed the 2024 Lok Sabha and recent state elections had all been rigged.
A day after the IE report, Rahul Gandhi held a press conference claiming his “vote chori” charge now stood vindicated, and he demanded that Gyanesh Kumar quit or be removed over “treason”. “No vote was stolen, Rahul Gandhi’s mind has been stolen,” Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said. Fadnavis also said Gandhi wanted to spread anarchy by defaming institutions while claiming to protect the Constitution.
