Rahul Gandhi, Congress Party president, stated on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat were “hijacking” India with the support of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and accused the four of committing “treason.”
While addressing an INDIA bloc march to the office of the Election Commission from Parliament Street, Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, made the statement.
"Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Mohan Bhagwat, and CEC Gyanesh Kumar have done democracy to death in the country. The whole nation feels it; the youth of the nation feels it," Gandhi said.
He went further to point out the particular course of action that he believes must result. "Action will be taken against them. The way our nation has been treated is treason. No one will escape," Gandhi said.
According to Gandhi, Modi, Shah, and Bhagwat have robbed the nation of its democratic process through vote chori—a Hindi term for vote theft. He accused CEC Gyanesh Kumar of abetting their actions. None of these claims have yet been proven by an independent investigation or judicial determination.
Gandhi's appearance when they faced opposition from the police near the Election Commission was justified by him on grounds that his presence there was in defense of the democratic process and not politics.
"What the BJP says doesn’t matter to me. I am here for the sake of democracy in the country. Even the policemen who are blocking me are saying this," he told reporters.
Photo: @PTI
The march led to face-offs in the streets of Delhi, where Rahul Gandhi and his sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who is the general secretary of Congress, along with other MPs, were held back by security personnel on Parliament Street, near Akashvani Bhawan and Niti Aayog, as they tried to get to the office of the Election Commission.
However, despite the presence of security personnel, both Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, among others, entered the premises of Akashvani Bhawan to reach the poll panel office.
Not only the Gandhi family members, but other political figures opposed to the BJP too found themselves in detention camps following the march. Among the figures arrested are Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, Trinamool Congress parliamentarians Abhishek Banerjee and Derek O'Brien, sources said.
The extent of the arrests made evident the level of coordination that went into yesterday’s rally involving opposition party leaders under the banner of the INDIA group.
Photo: @PTI and X/@samajwadiparty
However, Tuesday's demonstration did not take place independently. It comes after several weeks of growing pressure from the opposition on the EC following revelations that two of the three members of the EC, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had recorded their objection at least 14 times in 10 months to decisions made with regard to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Before that, Gandhi himself had asked for Kumar's resignation in a press conference a few days earlier in which he proposed that Kumar "turn approver in any future inquiry." This was not the first time that Gandhi had said that his objections to Kumar had been ongoing since Kumar took up his post as the CEC because he had filed a formal dissent note against Kumar's nomination.
Another protest was also organized independently by a group of young people forming a social activist movement called the Cockroach Janta Party at Shivaji Park, Mumbai, on October 2, in which more than 700 people were arrested.
In response to the labeling of its internal processes by the opposition, the Election Commission has always defended itself by saying that its decisions have been unanimous decisions involving all the three members of the commission.
As of Tuesday evening, none of the four individuals mentioned above had made any response to the "treason" charge of Tuesday.
It is not the first time that Gandhi has hurled the accusation of "treason" at Modi. Back in 2019, while heading the Congress party, he accused Modi of treason over his alleged involvement in certain dealings related to the Rafale deal on the basis of an email that had proved that businessman Anil Ambani had prior information about the bilateral deal.
The latest charge, however, goes beyond that and involves more names, including the PM, Home Minister, RSS chief, and even the Chief Election Commissioner, which is perhaps one of the widest-ranging accusations that Gandhi has made against India’s political and institutional leadership in a single go.
Given that opposition lawmakers have been detained and the march halted before they can reach the Election Commission, it is still unclear what the immediate effect of yesterday’s demonstration has been. However, Gandhi’s call for Kumar to resign, as well as the allegations of “vote chori” by the named officials, has not borne fruit as yet.
