PM didn't hack EVMs, he has hacked people's hearts: Kangana Ranaut in Lok Sabha

New Delhi: BJP MP Kangana Ranaut on Wednesday said in Lok Sabha that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not need to manipulate voting systems to win elections because “he has hacked the hearts of the people".

Participating in a discussion on ‘Election Reforms’, Ranaut said the past year had been “deeply worrying” because of what she described as daily disruptions by opposition members.

She said watching them often felt “traumatic”, adding that MPs had repeatedly “jumped into the Well, shouted ‘SIR, SIR’, created a spectacle, tried intimidation and misbehaved in every possible way”.

Ranaut said that the disruptions prevented Parliament from functioning.

“Maybe, barring the last two or three days, they did not let the House run at all. We are representatives of the people; we come here to learn, especially as new MPs,” she said, accusing the Opposition MPs of turning every session into theatre.

On allegations of EVM tampering, Ranaut said Congress leaders were unwilling to accept electoral defeats. “Let me tell the Congress people that the Prime Minister does not hack EVMs, he hacked people’s hearts,” she said.

She mocked demands for a return to the paper ballot system, calling it an "outdated relic of another era".

The MP from Mandi Lok Sabha constituency in Himachal Pradesh also took a dig at Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, saying she was expecting a “grand revelation” from him after hearing the same allegations throughout the year.

Instead, she said, Gandhi “kept speaking in metaphors about khadi, threads and people".

Ranaut criticised the opposition benches for displaying a photograph of a woman of “foreign origin” during the debate, despite House rules prohibiting the use of placards.

“As a woman, I want to say every woman is entitled to her dignity,” she said, adding that the woman in question had clarified multiple times on social media that she had “never been to India” and had “nothing to do with the Haryana elections”.

“Yet they flashed her image here without any evidence. That is a violation of personality rights. On behalf of this House, I apologise to her,” she said.

Accusing the opposition of "routinely insulting women”, Ranaut contrasted their approach with that of the Modi government. She cited schemes such as Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, the construction of household toilets and free cooking gas connections as examples of initiatives that empowered women.

Ranaut also attacked Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for saying the government should “leave the past behind.” She said the Congress “cannot escape its own history,” alleging that senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi had voted in elections even before acquiring Indian citizenship.

“This family has always been steeped in entitlement,” she said, adding that Priyanka Gandhi should “remember both the past and the present”.