Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday flagged off the 16-day Voter Adhikar Yatra at Saura airfield ground in Rohtas in Bihar, saying the BJP was trying to overthrow the Constitution and committing sweeping misuse of elections. He claimed that to deny millions of citizens the franchise, the BJP was employing unfair means such as voter suppression and the use of the special intensive revision (SIR) to manipulate electoral rolls.
“There is a threat to the Constitution. The poor man has only a vote, and that, too, is being taken away from him”, he said in an appeal to the people to resist such methods because it is their duty to protect democracy.
Endorsed by prominent figures in the INDIA bloc, including RJD Chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Bihar opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav and CPI(ML) leader Dipankar Bhattacharya, the Yatra will span approximately 1,300 km over 25 destinations to culminate in Patna on 1st September. It will seek to create awareness regarding the rights of the voter and put in the spotlight the allegedly wrong actions before the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections.
Using voter fraud as an example, Gandhi argued that in Maharashtra, a million voters were enlisted in favour of the BJP, and in Karnataka, 1 lakh votes were tampered with in a single seat. He reiterated the need to conduct a caste census and do away with the limit of how many reservations one can make to 50 per cent, as a Congress-led government would bring justice to the marginalised community.
Lalu Prasad shared the same sentiments as Rahul Gandhi, who claimed that the entire process of SIR was capable of disenfranchising 65 lakh voters of Bihar. He termed it a second freedom struggle and demanded that the supporters defend democracy.
Kharge also lamented inefficiency on the part of the Election Commission to overlook the differences that they could access voter data. He also levelled charges of falsely claiming Indian independence history and continuing to point out that the contribution of the BJP-RSS was insignificant towards the struggles of Congress.
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