'Congress no longer the party that won freedom for India': FM Sitharaman

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman went all guns blazing against the Congress in a recent interview. Sitharaman said that at present, the Congress is a party full of visceral hatred for Prime Minister Narendra Modi so they are going to any extent to prove that the results of Lok Sabha elections 2024 are not legitimate. 

Sitharaman said in an exclusive conversation with News18 that the Congress' results will not be something "that they can take pride in, they are going on the wrong route". The Union Finance Minister added that the grand old party did not like the Prime Minister during his tenure as the Gujarat chief minister. 

Sitharaman, known for her no-nonsense approach, added that the BJP's oft-repeated charge that the Congress has deviated from its original form holds true, given the current scenario.

She said, "Congress is no longer the party which claimed with other groups that they won freedom for India. It is no longer that movement that Congress was. They are trying to project and they would go to any extent from the kind of statements that are coming to delegitimise the electoral process."

Furthermore, Sitharaman claimed Congress' claims of rigging in electronic voting machines (EVMs) or discrepancies in polling turnout are not merely excuses. Like several other BJP leaders, the Finance Minister also mentioned how the Congress won Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh by the same electoral processes but would turn skeptical in case of the general polls. 

She further claimed that many forces are probably getting "implicit support" from the Congress and its communist allies to discredit this Lok Sabha election, electoral processes and the results of this election. She added that trying to discredit India's election process was a serious offense. 

The Congress has repeatedly opposed casting votes using the EVM machines. In May this year, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to the Election Commission of India (ECI) that he understood "the pressures" the poll panel was "working under." On voter turnout data, he said that he does understand the need to write 'Commission is not legally bound to publish any voter turnout data at aggregate level of a constituency or a state.'

In April this year, however, the Supreme Court of India rejected all the petitions seeking the complete verification of votes cast using the EVMs with voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips. The Supreme Court bench, comprising Justices Dipankar Dutta and Sanjiv Khanna, also rejected a demand to get back to the use of ballot papers in elections.