New Delhi, Dec 9— Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday used a Lok Sabha debate on election reforms to accuse the RSS and the BJP of reshaping India’s institutions to weaken democratic equality, charging that recent election laws and decisions were designed to tilt the electoral field.
Gandhi told the House that the principle of equality “disturbs” the Sangh’s worldview. “RSS fundamentally does not believe in equality; they believe in a hierarchy,” he said. “Their project after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination was wholesale capture of India’s institutional framework.”
He argued that the Election Commission had been drawn into this “capture,” and that key changes made by the government had undermined its independence. “Why was the CJI removed from the selection panel for appointing election commissioners?” he asked. “Why did the prime minister and home minister give the gift of immunity to commissioners by changing the law? And why was the law on CCTV footage changed?”
Pointing to the recent Haryana Assembly polls, he alleged that the election “was stolen and the theft was ensured by the EC.” He said such interventions compromised the country’s democratic foundation. “Our nation is woven together by vote,” he said. “Those across the aisle are committing an anti-national act by committing vote ‘chori’.”
Gandhi said the opposition wanted concrete reforms ahead of future elections, including mandatory access to machine-readable voter lists one month before polling and restoration of rules requiring full retention of CCTV footage. “We are not just the biggest democracy,” he said, “we are the greatest democracy — and we want to keep it that way.”
