Lok Sabha elections not fought on level playing field, alleges Rahul Gandhi
Washington (PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has alleged the general elections in India this summer were not fought on a level playing field, asserting that the polls have destroyed the idea of Modi.
The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, who is currently on a four-day visit to the United States, made the remarks at the prestigious Georgetown University here on Monday.
Addressing the event, Gandhi said that the ruling coalition had collapsed and was broken "right down the middle".
“It's not just the prime minister, it's deeper than that. What has happened in India is that the coalition that brought Mr (Narendra) Modi to power has collapsed. It's broken right down the middle," Gandhi said.
"So you'll see in these elections that they will struggle. Because the basic idea that Mr Modi is running a government for the people of India is gone,” he added.
Alleging that the Lok Sabha elections were not fought on the same footing, Gandhi said, "I don’t see it as a free election. I see it as a heavily controlled election."
"I don't believe that in a fair election, the BJP would come anywhere near 240 seats. I would be surprised," he said, asserting that the party had a "huge financial advantage".
"The Election Commission was doing what they wanted. The entire campaign was structured so that Mr Modi could carry out his agenda across the country, with different designs for different states," Gandhi claimed.
"The Congress party fought the elections with their bank accounts frozen and has basically destroyed the idea of Modi. You can see it because when you see the prime minister now in Parliament...he is psychologically trapped, and he basically cannot come to terms, he cannot understand how this has happened," he said.
Responding to a question, Gandhi said that halfway through the campaign, Prime Minister Modi didn't think he would get anywhere near 300 or 400 seats.
“I think early on he realised that this thing's going wrong. We were getting inputs from regular sources...It was pretty clear that they were in trouble,” he said.
“So, there was this internal thing going on in the prime minister that I could see. And psychologically, how is this now happening? Because he's a person, as you know, he was in Gujarat for many years, never faced political adversity, then prime minister of India. Suddenly, this idea started to crack,” Gandhi said.
“We knew. When he said that I speak directly to God, we knew that we had actually blown him apart. And that the psychology had gone. So people think that, well, this was the prime minister sort of saying that, look, 'I'm special, I'm unique, and I talk to God'. But that's not how we saw it. Internally, we saw it as a psychological collapse, what happened here? How is this thing not working?” he said.
"Now that idea has been replaced," he said.
Gandhi, who arrived in the US on Saturday, interacted with members of the Indian diaspora and youths in Dallas, Texas. He also plans to meet lawmakers and senior officials of the US government in Washington DC.
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Kapil Sibal informs SC about rape threats to female lawyers representing West Bengal in RG Kar case
New Delhi: Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday that female lawyers from his chambers were receiving rape and physical harm threats for representing the State of West Bengal in the case concerning the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at Kolkata's RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
Sibal expressed concerns before a bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, stating that women in his chambers were being threatened with acid attacks and rape, and that posts were circulating about him laughing during the proceedings.
"There are threats to women in my chamber, and then there are posts about me laughing. People are saying acid will be thrown at them, and they will be raped," Sibal said.
The Court reassured him, with CJI Chandrachud stating, "If there are any such threats to any man or woman, we will step in."
Sibal also raised concerns about the impact of live-streaming the hearings on the lawyers’ reputations, stating that the 50-year reputation he had built was being destroyed overnight due to misinterpretations of court remarks. He requested the Court to halt the live-streaming, but the CJI declined, maintaining that it was in the public interest.
The case relates to the rape and murder of a 31-year-old resident doctor, whose body was found on August 9 in a seminar hall of RG Kar Medical College. An autopsy confirmed that the doctor had been raped and murdered. The incident sparked protests across the country, with doctors demanding stronger laws and increased protection for medical professionals.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is currently handling the probe, following an order from the Calcutta High Court. The Supreme Court took suo motu cognizance of the matter, issuing several directives, including the establishment of a National Task Force to address issues related to the safety of medical professionals and gender-based violence. The Court also ordered the State of West Bengal to file a status report on the acts of vandalism that took place at the hospital following the incident and directed that Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) security be deployed at the hospital.
The CBI is expected to submit a status report on the investigation soon.
