Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has called Congress leader Rahul Gandhi a liar, accusing him of spreading false claims about electoral rolls and of weakening democracy. The remarks were made on Friday, 13 November, at a programme in Bolangir district of Odisha, where Chouhan is on a two-day visit.
Chouhan said Gandhi was misleading the public on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the exercise under which the government says ineligible voters are removed from the rolls. He alleged that Congress and its allies were deliberately misinforming people about the process. In his account, Gandhi's campaign amounted to an attempt at regime change without going through elections, a charge he framed as a threat to the democratic process itself.
Chouhan also drew a historical comparison, recalling the Emergency declared by the Congress government as an anti-democratic act. By invoking it, he sought to position the current criticism of the SIR as part of a wider pattern he attributed to the opposition. The article does not report any response from Congress to these allegations.
The remarks were tied to the Bharatiya Janata Party's «Save Democracy, Remove Anarchy» campaign, which Chouhan is set to join in Odisha. The campaign provides the political frame for his visit, during which he is also scheduled to take part in events linked to government welfare schemes.
On the welfare front, Chouhan is due to hand letters to Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Majhi concerning four lakh houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin). He also reiterated the government's stated goal of creating six crore «Lakhpati Didis», and pledged that women would not lose support under the self-help group initiative.