‘Urban Naxals’ are Congress’s software and ‘Jihadis’ are its hardware, says C.T. Ravi

The Congress neither has its own software nor hardware; ‘urban naxals’ are its software and ‘jihadi forces’ are its hardware, alleged Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLC C.T. Ravi on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters in Mangaluru, Mr. Ravi said unable to digest electoral defeats, the Congress has been making every effort to destabilise the elected government at the Centre, starting from intolerance to award vaapsi, from anti citizenship amendment Act (CAA) protest to farmers’ protest and now the anti-SIR protest. Fortunately, efforts for the regime change on the lines of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, were unsuccessful in India, Mr. Ravi said.

Charging the Congress of adopting a dual stand on the electronic voting machine (EVM), Mr. Ravi said if the party still believes EVMs could be hacked, it should ask its governments in Karnataka, Telangana, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh and alliance governments in Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu, to quit the office and face fresh mandate through ballot papers. Congress claims ‘people’s mandate’ when it wins an election and blames EVMs when it loses one, he said.

On the allegation of ‘vote chori,” Mr. Ravi said the NDA came to power in 2014 when the UPA-appointed V.S. Sampath was the Chief Election Commissioner. When the Election Commission of India headed by CECs appointed during the NDA governments conducted Lok Sabha polls in 2019 and 2024, the Congress’ tally only increased while the BJP numbers got reduced. Thus, there was no merit in the ‘vote chori’ argument, he said. Similar was the case with the percentage of votes polled too.