Puppet has to go but puppeteer pair must be held accountable too: Congress

LOP Rahul Gandhi. File. | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma

The Congress on Tuesday (October 6, 2026) alleged that the West Bengal assembly polls were a "textbook case of mass manipulation and rigging" which was overseen by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and asserted that the "puppet" has to go but the "two puppeteers" too have to be held accountable.

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Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh shared a screenshot of a media report that claimed that judges of more than a dozen Tribunals appointed in West Bengal on the orders of the Supreme Court to process SIR appeals, including those of 27 lakh deleted electors, have highlighted glaring gaps in a digital portal set up for them by the Election Commission of India's IT division.

In his post on X, Mr. Ramesh said, "More skeletons are tumbling out of the Election Omission of India's closet."

"Clearly the PM-HM (Narendra Modi-Amit Shah) strategy was to somehow capture and win the West Bengal Assembly elections at any cost. It was a text book case of mass manipulation and rigging which was overseen by the CEC," Mr. Ramesh alleged.

The puppet has, of course, to go, but the two puppeteers too have to be held accountable, he said, in an apparent reference to Mr. Kumar, and Modi and Shah.