Much of the attack by BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad, however, focused on Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha) Rahul Gandhi and the recent protests by the Congress-led INDIA bloc.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called it a “victory of the people” as massive police action across Delhi, and even beyond, aimed to scuttle a protest call by the youth Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) over alleged electoral fraud on Saturday.
“We are not opposed to protests, but you have weaponised street protests because of your electoral defeats,” said BJP spokesperson and MP Ravi Shakar Prasad, aiming at the Congress directly, though he did not name the CJP.
“India is not a banana republic.
Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, this country has never bowed and never will,” Prasad said, defending the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, the demand for whose resignation is at the centre of the wave of recent protests. “Based on the events of today and the preceding three days, two things have become clear,” he said. “We are not opposed to protests, but you have weaponised street protests because of your electoral defeats,” he said, aiming at the Congress by name, though he did not name the CJP as such. On Rahul Gandhi’s assertion after that meeting on Friday that the President “did not deny” allegations of “vote chori”, Ravi Shankar Prasad said his claim was an insult to the President’s office. The Congress memo carried four demands: Resignation of Gyanesh Kumar and repeal of the 2023 law that provides life-long immunity to the CEC and ECs; immediate suspension of the SIR and restoration of all 13.3 crore voters deleted from electoral rolls; a return to paper ballots for all elections; and to repeal all Assembly elections over the last two years “in which conclusive evidence of vote chori has been presented”.
