Patna: In a scathing attack on the Centre, the Congress on Wednesday said a government built on “stolen mandates” and “rigged voter lists” has no moral or political legitimacy, and claimed that “conspiracy” of the special intensive revision was another “dirty trick” from the BJP’s toolkit to manipulate electoral rolls to cling on to power.
The assertions were made in two resolutions - one political and the other an appeal to voters of Bihar - that were passed by the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting here chaired by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.
Addressing a press conference after the meeting at Sadaqat Ashram, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in the next one month, Gandhi will come out with more revelations on “vote chori” which would be akin to detonating “hydrogen bomb”, “mini hydrogen bomb”, “uranium bomb” and “plutonium bomb”.
“Different bombs in different places. This is just the beginning. The revelations related to Mahadevapura and Aland in Karnataka are just the beginning, and there is a long story in this motion about the vote-stealing campaign,” Ramesh said.
A campaign to collect 5 crore signatures against “vote chori” was launched from September 15 and will continue till October 15th, and these 5 crore signatures will be submitted to the Election Commission, he said.
“The Election Commission is not answering our questions. The Election Commission has conspired and has become a puppet of Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) and Home Minister (Amit Shah),” he said.
The meeting was attended by former party chief Rahul Gandhi, treasurer Ajay Maken, general secretaries KC Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh and Sachin Pilot, and Bihar Congress chief Rajesh Kumar, among others.
In the political resolution, the CWC said, “’Vote chori’ and irregularities in our electoral rolls have shaken public belief in the very foundations of our democracy. The CWC resolved to salute Rahul Gandhi for boldly exposing the shameless ‘vote chori’ and bravely fighting these brazen attempts to subvert democracy.”
“This exposes the systematic and deliberate conspiracy used to manufacture an elected majority for the BJP. A government built on stolen mandates and rigged voter lists has no moral or political legitimacy,” the resolution said.
“It is not based on public trust but on deceit. In the absence of democratic accountability, the government is freed of any obligation to care about unemployment, farmer suicides, inflation, crumbling healthcare, ruined education and crumbling infrastructure. The
government is apathetic because it knows that it can remain in power not through service but through deceit and fear,” the resolution said.