Rahul Gandhi on Saturday argued that the capture of key institutions by the RSS-BJP had destroyed democracy in India and expressed serious concern at the Election Commission’s failure to address doubts about the manipulation of Electronic Voting Machines.
Responding to a question about EVMs during an interaction with lawyers at Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu, Rahul said: “Fundamentally, I am not convinced that EVMs are 100 per cent secure. I think there are problems with EVMs. The world over, EVMs have shown to have problems. A number of developed countries refused to use them because they are seen to be open to manipulation.”
“One of my biggest issues with the EVM is that the Election Commission doesn’t give political parties access to the machines for examination. We ask for random checks by neutral observers, the commission says ‘No’. I would be comfortable with the EVM if it was open to checking, if it was transparent. The first step the EC can take is to say we will allow checking of machines if so many political parties are having doubts.”
The former Congress president has voiced doubts about voting machines in the past as well.
Responding to another question whether Congress MLAs could be purchased using money and coercion by central agencies because the party did not pick good candidates, Rahul said: “Choosing the right candidate is only one component of the problem. Our government was bought in Madhya Pradesh. I know the amount of money thrown at MLAs. Massive amounts of money. You have seen in Arunachal, the attempt made in Rajasthan. The force of power and money is so strong, so heavy, even the right kind of MLAs will not be able to sustain.”
Referring to the larger challenge that Indian democracy was grappling with, Rahul said: “A nation is a balance between its institutions. If that balance is disturbed, the nation is disturbed. Legislatures, judiciary, media, bureaucracy… they hold the nation in place. What we have seen over the past few years is a systematic attack on these institutions. Democracy doesn’t die with a bang. It dies slowly. Sad to tell you that democracy is dead in India. It doesn’t exist anymore.”
He continued: “It is dead because one organisation — the RSS — has combined with huge finances to penetrate into these institutions and disturb the balance. That has happened. Misuse of the sedition law, killing and threatening of people are symptoms of the bigger problem. The problem is concentration of capital has combined with the RSS to destroy multiple balances at different levels. As a political person, I require institutional support. I require a media that is objective. I require a judiciary that is aggressive. I require a Parliament where we can speak.”
Alleging that RSS had managed full penetration of the judiciary, media, bureaucracy and other institutions, the Congress leader said: “There is only one way it is going to be resolved. That is mass action, when citizens realise that the country is not being run by their mandate, the country is run by force, undemocratically. You can see the beginnings of mass movement. The stirrings are there; farmers are sitting on Delhi’s borders.”
Referring to the huge resources that the RSS-BJP command, he added: “When we have one party fighting with thousands of crores and you have other parties not allowed to raise finances. Financiers who want to support other parties… they come to us and say we understand what you stand for and want to support. But if we give you one rupee, our businesses will be destroyed. So on one side, there is capture of institutions and monopoly on finances, monopoly on media and finances and on the other side parties are not allowed to compete. Their mandate is taken away. I never imagined before 2014 that we will not have any institutional support.”
Asked if anti-defection laws should be strengthened given the largescale purchase of MLAs in several states, he said: “We can make laws stronger but for that you need Parliament. We don’t have that. We can have good ideas but we need institutional structure to implement those ideas. The situation is like when India was fighting the British. We can’t rely on institutions.”
Arguing that anybody who speaks against the BJP is pushed around, he said: “I am lucky. I am lucky because there is nothing they have on me. Because I had the good sense through my whole political career to be an honest man. That is why they can’t touch me. There is nothing they can do to me. Because no ED, CBI is going to affect me. They know this man is not corrupt and we have no leverage on him.”
