Calls meeting ‘unbelievable’
New Delhi, Oct 9 : President Droupadi Murmu has asked an INDIA bloc delegation to provide evidence in support of its allegations of “vote chori” (electoral fraud), Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said on Friday after a meeting at Rashtrapati Bhavan here.
Gandhi, who led the Opposition delegation along with other INDIA bloc leaders, told reporters that the President “did not deny” their accusations and instead sought proof.
“The main thing is that I expected the President of India to deny that ‘vote chori’ was taking place. I expected her to say that India has a free and fair electoral system. I was shocked and stunned that the President of India accepted what we said,” Gandhi said.
“I sat in quite an unbelievable meeting. First, we took a memorandum to the President of India. In that memorandum, we clearly stated that the Prime Minister, HM Amit Shah, and CEC Gyanesh Kumar had conspired to destroy Indian democracy,” he said.
Gandhi claimed that the President “in no way denied what we said, questioned what we said, or argued what we said.” According to him, the President “accepted” their statements and then “told us that we needed to provide her with proof of ‘election chori’.”
“I said that the evidence of ‘election chori’ is known to the entire country. State after state has been stolen. The 2024 election was stolen, and yet the President wants us to submit proof to her,” Gandhi said.
“This same group of people will be very happy to present the evidence of ‘election chori’ that we have collected to the President of India when she is ready to accept it,” he added.
The INDIA bloc’s memorandum to the President called for sweeping changes to the electoral system, including the removal and prosecution of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, withdrawal of parliamentary immunity granted to the CEC, and replacement of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with paper ballots, sources said.
The Opposition alliance also demanded an immediate halt to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the reinstatement of millions of names allegedly deleted from voter lists across several states, they said.
The demands came as Opposition MPs and INDIA bloc leaders marched from Parliament towards Rashtrapati Bhavan in the national capital, escalating their protest against the Election Commission and pressing for Kumar’s resignation.
The BJP rejected the Opposition’s allegations, with senior party leaders accusing the INDIA bloc of “manufacturing a fake narrative” to discredit the electoral process. They questioned why the Opposition had not approached the courts if it possessed evidence of irregularities.
Friday’s meeting is the latest flashpoint in an escalating standoff between the government and the Opposition over the conduct of elections and the powers of the Election Commission. (With Agency Inputs)
