Several MPs of the INDIA bloc parties held a protest in the Parliament House complex on Tuesday against the EC’s electoral roll revision in Bihar, with many of them wearing white T-shirts that had the name of the “124-year-old voter” allegedly found on the state’s voters’ list emblazoned on it
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during a protest by INDIA bloc leaders against the election commission. PIC/PTI
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday accused the Election Commission of not performing its duty of enforcing the ‘one man, one vote’ principle and said “abhi picture baki hai”, alluding to the claims of irregularities in the voters’ list. Gandhi asserted that his party was engaged in protecting the Constitution and would continue to do so. “There is not just one seat [where there is ‘vote chori’] but there are a number of seats. This is being done at a national level and systematically. The EC knows it and we know it too,” je told reporters in the Parliament House complex.
“Earlier, evidence was not there but now there is evidence. We protect the Constitution. ‘One man, one vote’ is the foundation of the Constitution,” Gandhi said. It is the duty of the EC to enforce ‘one man, one vote’ and they have not done their duty, Gandhi said. Asked about Minta Devi, a 124-year-old voter allegedly listed in the Election Commission’s voter list from Bihar, Gandhi said, “There are unlimited cases like that. Abhi picture baki hai.”
T-shirt protest
Several MPs of the INDIA bloc parties held a protest in the Parliament House complex on Tuesday against the EC’s electoral roll revision in Bihar, with many of them wearing white T-shirts that had the name of the “124-year-old voter” allegedly found on the state’s voters’ list emblazoned on it. They held posters and raised slogans, demanding a rollback of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. Several MPs, including Priyanka Gandhi, were seen wearing white T-shirts with ‘Minta Devi’ and her photo emblazoned on it and ‘124 Not Out’ written at the back.
PM should resign: TMC MP
Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet should resign and the Lok Sabha be dissolved if the Election Commission says there are discrepancies in the electoral rolls.
BJD to move Odisha HC
The Biju Janata Dal said that it would approach the Orissa High Court regarding “discrepancies” during the 2024 assembly and Lok Sabha polls, as the EC has “failed” to give any satisfactory reply.
SC: Electoral rolls within remit of EC
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said inclusion and exclusion of citizens or non-citizens from the electoral rolls was within the remit of the Election Commission (EC) and backed its stand to not accept Aadhaar and voter cards as conclusive proof of citizenship in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters’ list in Bihar.
As the row over the ongoing SIR escalated inside and outside Parliament, the top court also observed that the dispute was “largely a trust deficit issue, since the EC has claimed that roughly 6.5 crore people of the total 7.9 crore voting population in poll-bound Bihar didn’t have to file any documents for them or their parents featured in the 2003 electoral rolls.
After senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for one of the petitioners, accused the EC of “presumptive exclusion” of five crore people in the SIR, the court indicated that if anything suspicious was found in making them invalid it could give a direction to include all of them in the electoral rolls.
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