Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, speaking on Monday, put forward a conditional offer to contest ballot-paper-based elections, provided that the Congress-led state governments in Kerala, Karnataka, and Telangana stepped down first. He stated that those administrations had come to power through what he described as vote fraud under Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, adding that any such move on his part depended on Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party being prepared to put their respective governments' continuation on the line.
Demanding that the governments of Kerala, Karnataka, and Telangana vacate office, Sarma attributed their respective paths to power to what he characterised as vote-rigging carried out under the watch of Gyanesh Kumar.
Speaking at a press conference, Sarma directed criticism at Congress and its opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, questioning the party's stance against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and disputing their assertions that votes had been misappropriated.
Sarma contended that population movement across Assam, West Bengal, and Jharkhand had made a revision of voter rolls necessary, adding that the SIR was warranted at a national level. Population composition across Assam, West Bengal, and Jharkhand has shifted over time, with cross-border migration patterns cited as a contributing factor by various researchers and officials.
He contended that cross-border movement of people into the country occurs on a daily basis, and that without removing those individuals from electoral rolls, the nation's population composition would shift. He also urged that the exercise be conducted on a recurring basis, stating that a statutory instrument review ought to take place once every five years.
He argued that such a step represented the only path to preserving democratic governance in India.
The Chief Minister alleged that Gandhi and Congress were acting in the interests of external parties and undermining the country's democratic institutions, further claiming that those institutions were under threat of deliberate dismantlement. His argument held that those currently holding authority were steering India toward a model resembling Nepal and Bangladesh.
The accusations put forward by Sarma positioned Gandhi as a threat to institutional order, while the "vote chori" demonstrations were characterised by him as a bid for power that lacked any popular mandate. Sarma characterised attendance at Congress rallies as thin, telling reporters that Rahul Gandhi was drawing crowds of roughly 2,000 to 3,000 people, a figure he attributed to an absence of genuine public backing.
A spokesperson for the opposing side characterised those who attended the rally as people acting out of personal grievances rather than any broader public interest, and as opponents of the direction in which the country was heading.
