The protests have gone on for months. Across the country, people are back on the streets.
The Cockroach Janta Party and their youth supporters are back at the barricades, even though some of their key leaders are in custody. But Gen Z is not giving up. The Opposition is back at the barricades too—and this time, we are not giving up either.
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has committed a crime against the people and offended the Constitution’s Basic Structure through an unpardonable act—snatching away citizens’ right to vote. In fact, all Election Commission officers who have overseen the “vote chori” elections since 2024, namely Assembly elections in Haryana, Maharashtra, Delhi, Bihar and Bengal, are culpable.
The Opposition will not stop protesting until a fresh Election Commission is constituted and Gyanesh Kumar is removed.
The Modi government’s response has followed a familiar script: discredit protest and protesters, engage in shrill name-calling, question our motives, and suggest that someone else is pulling the strings. But the old labels are beginning to sound like what they are: tired tropes, hackneyed labels, exhausted clichés and stale troll-speak, repeated ad nauseam because this government has totally run out of persuasive answers. The Modi government is bankrupt of credibility, ideas, arguments and policies.
Also read: ‘Ghuspaithiye’ is Amit Shah’s smokescreen for Vote Chori
Questions Modi govt can’t avoid
Take the charge that the Opposition is apparently protecting ghuspaithiyas, or infiltrators. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has been presented as a way to remove them from the electoral rolls. But where are the ghuspaithiyas? How many foreign nationals did the SIR actually identify? A figure of 13.39 crore deletions has been cited, counting draft-stage deletions across three phases and including people removed because of death, relocation and duplication. The central question remains unanswered: how many of those deleted has the government identified as infiltrators? Why is the government not providing figures? RTI responses and questions in Parliament have gone unanswered. Instead, genuine citizens are being struck off the rolls. Ninety-three per cent of voters whose appeals have been heard in Bengal have been restored to the rolls. Lakhs remain deleted. Their appeals have not even been heard yet.
If the Modi government has evidence of “infiltrators”, it should publish it. If it has a number, it should provide it. A grave accusation or an empty political war cry cannot substitute for a clear answer based on hard numbers.
Then comes the claim by the Modi government that the protests are foreign-funded. Where is the proof? “Foreign hand” is an old political reflex. Indira Gandhi reached for it in the 1970s; governments under pressure have returned to it since. Repeating the accusation does not make it credible. It only raises another question: why must citizens demanding answers be portrayed as agents of some unseen power? If any protest is “funded”, please show us the evidence. Don’t resort to name-calling and media witch hunts. Such name-calling, amplified by the Modi-friendly media, is no longer working.
The word ‘anarchist’ is thrown at peaceful protesters. But who is creating disorder? Is it the citizen who comes to demonstrate peacefully, or the authorities who barricade public spaces, shut metro stations and restrict the places where people may assemble? The Modi government has denotified New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar—always the site of peaceable protest—thus causing protests to spill onto streets. Isn’t it the Modi government which is an anarchist? When people are beaten or intimidated by Hindutva vigilante groups, should we not ask who is undermining the rule of law? Who are the real anarchists: peaceful protesters or a repressive government that shuts down daily facilities to throw citizens into distress?
And then there is the charge first popularised by Modi: dimagi naxal—a phrase designed to make dissent sound sinister. But look at who is coming out to protest: young people, students, professors, film actors, doctors, parents, citizens from very different walks of life, public figures and people who may never have joined a demonstration before. They do not fit Modi’s convenient caricature of a handful of professional agitators. The protests have widened because the concerns have widened: jobs, education, civil liberties and the right to vote.
The BJP claims that the Opposition is divided. This is totally wrong. On the issue of protecting India’s elections, electoral rolls and saving India’s democracy, Opposition parties have found common ground like never before. We are totally united. The alignment is striking because the concern is larger than any one party: whether citizens can trust the process by which their names remain on—or disappear from—the electoral rolls.
The BJP media machine likes to caricature Rahul Gandhi with the familiar insult “Pappu”. But worn-out clichés cannot erase real political change and individual evolution. The Rahul Gandhi of today is indomitable: a battle-hardened, street-fighting leader who has walked, listened, protested and taken on the government directly. He has not tasted power for 12 years, instead fought it out, year after year, on the streets. The old jaded label no longer explains the remarkable political figure who now stands before us.
Modi acolytes and BJP supporters have latched onto the phrase “regime change” as if it were a threat to the country. It is not. In a democracy, every Opposition party seeks to replace the government through elections and install its own policies and programmes. That is what opposition means. To turn “regime change” into a sinister phrase is a semantic trick, a troll’s outrage, not an argument.
Old tropes won’t work now
So why is the effort to discredit the Opposition failing this time? Because people recognise the script. Citizens have heard “foreign hand” before. They have seen protesters called “anti-national”, “anarchist” and “foreign-funded”. They know that a label does not answer real questions. The shrieky finger-pointing has run its course; it cuts no ice.
Today, the protests are not confined to one party, one leader or one constituency. The youth movement has continued to draw support despite arrests and restrictions, while Opposition leaders are marching in unison. The breadth of the protests this time means the Modi government has been dwarfed. The government is confronted with an avalanche.
The government can call us names. It can try its old tricks of abusive labelling. But it cannot make the underlying questions disappear. How many voters were removed, and why? How many were actually found to be foreign nationals? What safeguards exist for those wrongly deleted? What evidence supports the allegations of foreign funding?
Until those questions are answered, the name-calling and caricaturing will keep falling flat. The Opposition is on the streets, citizens are asking questions, and the Modi government’s exhausted old tropes are no longer enough. This time, the attempts to discredit the Opposition—both political opponents and citizen protesters—are simply not working.
Sagarika Ghose is a Rajya Sabha MP, All India Trinamool Congress. She tweets @sagarikaghose. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant Dixit)
I take the opposition out of the frame completely. ( Without meaning any disrespect to it, always a government in waiting in a genuine democracy ). In Year Thirteen, the government has to take complete ownership of everything. The hits and the misses. No excuses, no alibis. Address the many frailties these protests are against. Education. Employment. The state of institutions. The credibility f the election process itself. 2. So, like the Editor, have banned “ Narrative “ from my dictionary.
Please spare us the moral high ground! BJP ain’t no angels and neither is Congress. B.K. Hariprasad (Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president) has literally said that Congress will fund any agitation against the Prime Minister and BJP. Quickly, very quickly, why is the Congress still struggling after 2014? it’s around 12 years. Some introspection is the need of the hour, no?
You are a threat to this country. You and Mamata and Abhishek and TMC coterie. Good on ThePrint for continuing to give you space and readers some comic relief.