Protest against SIR, ‘vote chori’
NEW DELHI, Aug 11: Opposition MPs, including Leaders of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, took out a protest march on Monday from Parliament House to the Election Commission against the revision of electoral rolls in Bihar and alleged “vote chori” but were stopped midway by the police and detained amid high drama.
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Police put up barricades outside PTI building on the way to prevent the MPs, protesting the voter roll revision in Bihar and the alleged poll rigging, from marching forward. As the MPs were stopped, many of them sat on the road and raised slogans while some women MPs, including saree-clad TMC’s Mahua Moitra and the Congress’ Sanjana Jatav and Jothimani, climbed the barricading and raised slogans against the EC.
They were later whisked away by police in buses lined up along the road and taken to the Parliament Street Police Station. All the MPs were later released.
“This fight is not political, but it is aimed at saving the Constitution. This fight is for ‘one man, one vote’ and we want a clean, pure voter list,” Rahul Gandhi said as he was being taken away in a bus after being detained.
“They cannot talk as the truth is before the entire nation….,” he said.
TMC’s Moitra and Mitali Bag also fainted during the protest and were helped by Rahul Gandhi.
Kharge, who was also detained from outside the PTI building, said the protest against ‘vote chori’ and SIR is a fight to protect people’s right to vote and a struggle to save democracy and the INDIA bloc will expose this BJP’s conspiracy.
In a post on X, he said, “BJP’s cowardly dictatorship will not work!”.
“This is a fight to protect the people’s right to vote. This is a struggle to save democracy,” he said.
“The allies of the INDIA bloc will surely expose this BJP conspiracy to shred the Constitution,” Kharge said in his post in Hindi.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh alleged that democracy was being “assaulted and murdered” right outside Parliament, as opposition MPs were stopped from taking out their protest march to the Election Commission office.
“Our demand from the EC was very clear, all opposition MPs are staging a peaceful march, at the end of the march, collectively, we wish to present a memorandum on SIR and other issues, we didn’t ask for a delegation. The language was clear, collectively, all opposition MPs would like to handover a memorandum to the EC. Now we are not allowed to even reach Nirvachan Sadan, we are stopped at PTI building. Right in front of Parliament, democracy is being assaulted, democracy murdered. This is too clever, cheeky reply by the ECI,” he said.
“Chunav Aayog is Chunav Aayog, it cannot be churao aayog,” Ramesh said. (PTI)
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