Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma put forward a conditional offer on Monday, stating he would participate in paper-ballot elections if the Congress-led administrations in Kerala, Karnataka, and Telangana stepped down first — on the basis that those governments, too, came to power under Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar during what he characterised as vote fraud.

At a press conference, Sarma directed criticism at Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party over their opposition to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, disputing their characterisation of the process as vote theft, and challenged Gandhi to put the matter to a paper-ballot vote on the condition that Congress-led state governments would step down if they lost.

Sarma urged the governments of Kerala, Karnataka, and Telangana to resign, arguing that their own election wins had been tainted by what he characterised as ballot manipulation conducted under Gyanesh Kumar's oversight.

The BJP representative argued that Rahul Gandhi's own entry into the Lok Sabha had relied on the very electoral process he was now questioning, and that stepping down himself would be the logical first step before calling on the Chief Election Commissioner to do the same.

Sarma posed the question of whether Gandhi's own route to the Leader of the Opposition position could be subjected to identical scrutiny, before contending that the Special Intensive Revision exercise serves as an instrument for monitoring demographic changes across the nation.

Population shifts have been recorded across Assam, West Bengal, and Jharkhand, with cross-border migration cited among the contributing factors by researchers and officials who have studied the demographic trends in those states.

Sarma argued that cross-border movement of undocumented persons was an ongoing occurrence, and that without removing their names from electoral rolls, the population composition of the country would shift — adding that the Special Intensive Revision process was put forward to address those changes. He also put forward a five-yearly statutory inquiry review as a formal requirement.

Sarma extended his remarks to argue that the outcome of the matter was tied to whether Indian democracy would hold. He put forward the claim that Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party were taking direction from outside the country, adding that the two were engaged in an effort to undermine democratic institutions.

He went on to claim that efforts were under way to reshape India along the lines of its neighbouring countries, and that Gandhi's actions put the country's democratic institutions at risk of disorder.

The "vote chori" protests organised by the Congress party were described by Sarma as an attempt to remove the sitting government through channels that lacked widespread public support, with Rahul Gandhi's campaign gatherings drawing crowds he put at roughly two to three thousand people. Speaking at the event, Sarma described the protest as a gathering shaped partly by genuine grievances and partly by what he termed "dimagi naxals" — a label he applied to those he views as standing against the nation's progress.

Sarma called on Congress to stay away from any election held using electronic voting machines, posing a direct question to Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party as to whether they intended to contest the forthcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Punjab, Manipur, and Uttarakhand. All of those elections are scheduled to take place under Gyanesh Kumar's oversight as Election Commissioner, with electronic voting machines set to be used across each of them.

Sarma further alleged that Gandhi and Congress had been working in concert to apply pressure on the country's institutions, among them the Election Commission and, most recently, the Supreme Court. He characterised their conduct over the matter as unacceptable, and contended that Gandhi, rather than motivating young people toward education, was drawing them into protests in Delhi.

When asked whether the CJP and Congress pursue overlapping goals because of some unstated coordination between them, Sarma put forward the position that the two organisations are competitors rather than partners, and added that he had no intention of engaging with those who use the word "cockroaches" as a self-description. The organisation, he added, reserves that designation for itself — not for the country's younger generation.

Sarma further contended that Gandhi, who had not visited the Ram temple, was now invoking Shiva and had announced plans to perform the tandav.