EC colluded with BJP in vote theft; whole country knows: Rahul
text_fieldsSasaram/Bihar: Embarking on a 1,300 km 'Voter Adhikar Yatra' from here, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday accused the Election Commission of "stealing" elections in collusion with the BJP and asserted that the INDIA bloc will not let their "latest conspiracy" to steal Bihar polls through SIR of electoral rolls succeed, PTI reported.
With barely three months left for the Bihar Assembly polls, Gandhi, along with RJD's Tejashwi Yadav and other leaders of Mahagathbandhan -- Vikassheel Insaan Party's Mukesh Sahani and CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya -- launched the yatra, sending a message that the Opposition is united in the state.
During the yatra aimed at highlighting the vote theft, the Congress leader was seen standing in a jeep driven by Yadav and accompanied by other leaders of Mahagathbandhan.
In his remarks at the yatra launch event here, Gandhi alleged that assembly and Lok Sabha polls were being "stolen" across the country and there was a "conspiracy" in Bihar to do the same through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
He said that while he was asked to submit an affidavit after his press conference exposing "vote chori", no such demand was made from BJP leaders who made claims in their presser.
"In the whole country, assembly and Lok Sabha elections are being stolen, and their latest conspiracy is to delete and add voters through SIR to steal the elections in Bihar," Gandhi charged.
"We have come here to tell you that we will not let them steal the election in Bihar. People of Bihar will not let them steal elections. The poor only have the power of the vote, and we will not let them steal polls," the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha said.
He said the whole country now knows what the EC is doing, and the Congress showed how it is carrying out this "theft".
"Wherever this theft is happening, be it Bihar, Maharashtra, Assam, West Bengal, we will catch their theft and put it before the people," Gandhi said.
Waving flags of the Congress, Left parties, VIP, and the RJD, supporters gathered at the launch event and chanted slogans against the EC and the BJP like "vote chor, gaddi chhor".
In his address at the event, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge charged the EC with acting like an "agent" of the "dangerous" Modi government at the Centre.
Kharge alleged that the Modi government poses a "threat" to the Constitution and the people's right to vote.
The veteran leader made the remarks before the flag-off of the yatra from Sasaram, a Congress stronghold in Bihar, which the party wrested back from the BJP in last year's parliamentary polls.