Kharge demands dissolution of LS, Assemblies

KALABURAGI (Karnataka), Oct 3:

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday demanded dissolving the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, saying that "all the elections were illegal" and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Ministers of all the states were "illegal".

He said fresh polls should be conducted on ballot papers.

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"Today, the entire country is being run on illegal elections. Modi is an illegal Prime Minister, Shah is an illegal minister, and all the chief ministers who have been elected anywhere are illegal. All of them should be dissolved, elections should be held, and elections should be conducted through ballot papers," he told reporters here.

Kharge alleged that the EVMs were being misused and said that "their own people" are saying this.

He alleged that the ongoing SIR of the electoral roll has many irregularities and is undermining democracy, pointing out that the government is making many mistakes in the process.

He said the opposition would continue to hold agitations across the country against the SIR exercise and alleged misuse of the electoral process.

Kharge referred to the INDIA bloc meeting held on September 30, in which members of 20 parties and their legal cell participated, and said everyone agreed that the SIR was going wrong for the country and was adversely affecting poor people, the uneducated, workers and, particularly, minorities.

He questioned what kind of free and fair election it would be if 500 votes were removed from a booth, as he alleged that attempts were now being made to add names.

The Congress President alleged that many people, particularly members of the BJP and RSS, were going to wards, panchayats and villages where they wanted votes to be deleted and were filling up forms there. He called it "completely wrong".

Kharge recalled that no leader in the past, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Narasimha Rao and Rajiv Gandhi, had ever done anything like this in a democracy.

"But the misuse that you are making is hurting our youth, poor people, Dalits and deprived sections," he said.

Kharge pointed out that while an affluent person could somehow get his work done, if something went wrong, a poor person had to leave his work and go to get it corrected or renewed.

Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of destroying democracy, the Congress president referred to the law under which the CEC and Election Commissioners are granted immunity from legal action for decisions taken while in office under Clause 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023. (PTI)