‘Abki baar loktantra Ka antim sanskar’, says senior party leader Pawan Khera
NEW DELHI — Launching a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress has flagged large-scale electoral manipulation, institutional capture and systematic erosion of democratic processes across multiple states, including West Bengal and Assam.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, AICC in-charge of Media and Publicity Pawan Khera said that electoral rolls were being “deliberately manipulated” and democratic institutions “compromised” to engineer favourable outcomes for the ruling party. “Abki baar loktantra ka antim sanskar” (This time, it is the last rites of democracy), he remarked, while suggesting that the BJP has put an end to democracy and democratic processes.
“The Vote-Chor BJP regime has now brazenly and systematically subverted the mandate of the people of Assam and West Bengal through a deeply entrenched, remote-controlled electoral machinery, effectively hijacking the institutions that are meant to protect free and fair elections”, he said, adding, “what remains today is not democracy in practice, but a hollowed-out shell, captured, compromised, and controlled”.
Khera asserted that in West Bengal, more than 90 lakh voters’ names were deleted during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, with 27 lakh citizens denied due process, and said this had materially affected results in several constituencies. Even the basic procedural right to be heard before any tribunal was denied. He described the result as a “manufactured verdict” rather than a genuine electoral outcome.
Referring to West Bengal, Khera said, “the BJP stands accused of orchestrating the large-scale theft of mandate, manipulating electoral rolls and engineering outcomes across more than 100 seats”. He pointed out that the number of deleted voters exceeded the winning margin in at least 50 constituencies, rendering the results structurally pre-decided. He expressed hope that the Supreme Court will take suo moto cognisance of this and restore the right to vote to those whose names had been deleted, adding that re-polling should be held in these constituencies.
“It is institutionalised electoral predation. The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA bloc) stands unequivocally with Mamata Banerjee in this decisive moment of democratic crisis”, he said, adding that her resolve to strengthen the INDIA bloc reflects a wider national imperative: the defence of constitutional democracy against systematic sabotage.
The INDIA bloc is united in recognising that what has transpired in West Bengal is not an election outcome, but a manufactured verdict imposed through manipulation, he added.
Khera also referred to electoral irregularities in Assam, saying that both states reflected a “captured democratic process” rather than isolated lapses.
Citing instances from other states, the senior Congress leader noted a broader pattern. He referred to irregularities in Karnataka’s Aland constituency, large-scale discrepancies in Haryana’s voter data, and unusual voter additions between the Lok Sabha and assembly elections in Maharashtra, as well as turnout revisions within a short period.
The Congress spokesperson stated that across several states, voter deletions under electoral revision exercises had impacted crores of electors, terming it a “systematic attempt to dilute the right to vote”. He also accused the BJP of using central agencies and institutional mechanisms to weaken opposition parties, describing it as “organised political targeting” aimed at reducing democratic competition.
Referring to the Election Commission of India, the senior party leader said that the poll body’s functioning had been compromised, claiming it was acting in a manner that facilitated such processes. He said that these developments indicated a shift from democratic contestation to “engineered political control”, and warned that such practices posed a serious challenge to the constitutional framework of the country.
Maintaining that Assam and Bengal were not isolated aberrations, he said this was a well-established, repeatable BJP playbook, deployed in Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bihar, and most brazenly during the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
“Each instance reinforces a disturbing pattern: systematic voter manipulation, institutional capture, and electoral distortion as a governing strategy”, he added.
The senior Congress leader noted that after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it was evident that the BJP realised that the people were prepared to throw it out through the ballot.
“In response, it has abandoned the democratic principle of consent and embraced a darker strategy: vote theft, institutional capture, and systemic electoral engineering as tools of political survival”, he said.
Khera added that the BJP had weaponised the so-called Systematic Intensive Revision as a tool to snatch away the fundamental right to vote.
The Congress leader also came down heavily on a section of the media for parroting the ruling party’s line and brazenly defending the West Bengal and Assam verdict.
Under SIR, he alleged, electoral rolls had been selectively manipulated in election-bound states. The Election Commission of India had effectively been reduced to a mechanism executing this design, he observed, while claiming that across 12 states, 7.2 crore voters had been deleted, amounting to 10.2% of India’s entire voter base.
