Rahul Gandhi in Goa: Modi plans vote theft, Shah runs it and the CEC carries it out

Rahul Gandhi on Sunday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of running a joint operation to steal elections, telling a rally in Margao that all three would answer for it.

“PM Modi, Amit Shah and CEC Gyanesh Kumar will face justice and pay the price for what they have done,” the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha said. In his telling, the Prime Minister plans “vote theft” behind the scenes, Mr Shah puts it into operation and the Chief Election Commissioner carries it out. “Gyanesh Kumar implements the vote theft, Amit Shah operationalises it,” he said.

The end of a long walk

The rally in south Goa marked the last day of the Congress’s 27-day Goy Rakhon Yatra, a campaign “to protect Goa” that went through all 40 assembly constituencies ahead of the state election due early next year. Before he spoke, Mr Gandhi walked about two kilometres with party workers through Margao.

He told the crowd the Congress had shown vote theft in Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Assam. “Votes of opposition were removed, votes were added in favour of the ruling party,” he said, urging workers to keep watch at every stage of polling.

The charge is the sharpest form yet of the campaign the Congress and its INDIA bloc allies have run against Mr Kumar over the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which has seen protests and mass detentions in Delhi this month.

Cases, but not this one

Mr Gandhi said he faced more than 45 defamation cases, some filed by people linked to Mr Modi and Mr Shah, yet nobody had sued him over the vote theft allegation. He suggested the government was avoiding such a case because it would open up a full legal fight over the rolls.

He also repeated his charge that the Centre favours the industrialists Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani with contracts and land in return for publicity and political backing.

Goa’s land and jobs

Turning to the state, Mr Gandhi accused the state government of corruption and of taking land from farmers and poorer families to hand it to “outsiders”. He said Goa had the highest unemployment in the country.

He also condemned the use of force, including pellet guns, against student protesters in Delhi, and accused the BJP and the RSS of controlling appointments in universities.

Earlier on Sunday, in an Instagram post with a video of a recent meeting with students, Mr Gandhi called the education system an “exclusion system”. “If you don’t have money, power, or don’t speak English, the system will push you out without a second thought,” he wrote. The post is part of his Chhatron Ki Goonj outreach, which has been to Kota, Dehradun, Prayagraj, Pune, Indore and Chennai.

There was no immediate response from the BJP or the Election Commission to the Margao speech by Sunday night.

What next

In Goa, the Congress will try to carry the yatra’s momentum into the run-up to the 2027 election. Nationally, the party’s fight with the Election Commission moves to the Supreme Court, which is due to take up the INDIA bloc’s challenge to the SIR after its Dussehra break, and to a Congress rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan planned for 1 November.