In a sharp political attack, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh took aim at the Indian National Congress regarding its ongoing agitations directed at Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Speaking at a press conference held in Lucknow, the senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader alleged that the principal opposition party is attempting to achieve regime change in the country by orchestrating unrest and inciting violence.
Rajnath Singh contended that the current agitation being driven by the Congress leadership mirrors recent political disruptions observed in the subcontinent. He asserted that the party is aiming to replicate what he termed the Bangladesh model of turmoil to unseat a constitutionally elected administration. According to him, the demonstrations are not genuinely focused on technical concerns surrounding the Special Intensive Revision or the individual functioning of the Chief Election Commissioner. Instead, he framed the campaign as a broader attempt to undermine India's democratic foundations and destabilize governing institutions.
The Union Minister turned the spotlight onto historical events to accuse the Congress of previously compromising the integrity of autonomous constitutional bodies. He argued that during its past tenures at the Centre, the Congress treated the Election Commission of India like an administrative puppet rather than an impartial arbiter of the public mandate. To substantiate his point, Singh revisited historical appointments and restructuring within the poll body during the early 1990s. He noted that the Congress government made sweeping overnight modifications to the commission's structure in 1993, which fundamentally altered how the institution operated.
Singh further recalled controversies involving past election commissioners, pointing out that when recommendations were previously made to remove certain high-ranking officials over perceived partiality, the Congress-led regime instead elevated those figures to the helm of the commission. He cited these historical precedents to highlight what he described as a double standard in the opposition's claims regarding institutional independence and constitutional propriety.
Reflecting on institutional reforms, the Defence Minister underscored the introduction of voter identification cards during the early 1990s as a major milestone for transparent governance. He argued that before the systematic rollout of official voter identification cards, the electoral process lacked foolproof safeguards to verify individual voter identities at polling stations. Singh observed that since credible identity verification became the norm across the country, the Congress has failed to secure a clear single-party majority on its own strength, suggesting that cleaner voting rolls and verifiable procedures shifted the political dynamics permanently.
Singh maintained that the ongoing agitation led by the Congress against the Special Intensive Revision is disingenuous. He stated that electoral roll updates and verification processes are routine administrative exercises intended to ensure that voting registries remain clean, accurate, and transparent. By turning these technical administrative exercises into a confrontation against institutional leadership, the opposition is engaging in deliberate attempts to erode public trust in independent regulatory bodies.
Addressing the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, the Defence Minister emphasized that democratic participation must always operate within constitutional and peaceful boundaries. Singh pointed out that while democratic structures allow for freedom of expression and peaceful protest, they do not grant political actors the license to resort to intimidation or disruptive force. He accused Rahul Gandhi of leaning into the politics of disruption rather than engaging in constructive policy debate, warning that attempting to bypass electoral outcomes through street agitation harms the democratic framework of the nation.