Rijiju Mocks Congress Over 'AI Crowd' as Rahul Targets Election Chief
A fierce political face-off escalated between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress following the INDIA bloc's mass protest at the historic Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi on Sunday, with the clash centering on conflicting crowd figures and accusations of digital image manipulation. Union Minister Kiren Rijiju triggered a social media storm by taking aim at the opposition on platform X, accusing the Congress campaign machinery of fabricating artificial intelligence (AI) imagery to create the illusion of an overflowing stadium. The controversy erupted after Telangana Congress MP Vamsi Gaddam, Congress Working Committee member Jagdish Thakor, and several party supporters shared aerial visuals of the venue, which online observers and ruling party leaders immediately called out for glaring digital anomalies, pointing to noticeably distorted facial features of Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi alongside stage structures that mismatched the actual on-ground setup.
The Crowd War at Ramlila Maidan: BJP Labels Rally a 'Flop Show' as Congress Cites Drone Footage
Branding the mega-rally an absolute failure, the BJP launched an aggressive digital counter-campaign, circulating photographs and ground videos showing vast swathes of unoccupied seating and asserting that at least 40 percent of the Ramlila Maidan remained entirely vacant throughout the proceedings. Addressing media personnel, BJP national spokesperson and Lok Sabha MP Sambit Patra took aim at the opposition's claims, noting that while Congress coordinators had initially projected an attendance of one million people, ground realities reflected widespread public apathy that could not be concealed by visual trickery, adding that optical illusions cannot manufacture prime ministerial candidates. Rejecting the charges, the Congress communications wing mounted a swift rebuttal by releasing verified aerial drone footage and panoramic venue photographs, maintaining that hundreds of thousands of supporters from across the country had converged on the national capital to demonstrate public resistance against the central dispensation.
Rahul Gandhi Targets Election Chief Over 2024 Mandate; BJP Dares Opposition on Legal Recourse
The war of words follows an explosive address delivered at the rally by Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, who mounted an unsparing offensive against the central government and the Election Commission of India by declaring the 2024 general election outcome invalid due to alleged institutional collusion and systemic vote tampering. Directly singling out Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Rahul Gandhi characterized the alleged electoral irregularities as state-sponsored subversion of citizen sovereignty amounting to treason, claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah would not hold office without Kumar's interventions and demanding penal accountability and imprisonment for the poll chief. Dismissing the allegations, Sambit Patra challenged the Congress leadership to substantiate their claims through statutory constitutional mechanisms and judicial petitions before the Supreme Court rather than staging public rhetoric, highlighting the opposition's failure to file formal legal challenges against the election results. The high-voltage confrontation forms part of an intensifying opposition offensive seeking Gyanesh Kumar's resignation following disputes over the Special Summary Revision (SSR/SIR) of electoral rolls, which had also seen coalition leaders convene a symbolic impeachment proceeding at Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge's residence on Saturday, even as the Election Commission and the BJP jointly dismissed the accusations as a coordinated assault designed to weaken public trust in India's constitutional authorities.
