Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge (L) with Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: Congress will hold a rally against "vote chori" (vote theft) in Delhi's iconic Ramlila Maidan on December 14, as the party intends to take forward the protest highlighting the signatures it collected from across the country.
Party president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi will attend the rally christened 'Vote Chor, Gaddi Chhor' (Vote Thief, Leave the Throne), which the Congress says is "only the beginning" of their fight to reclaim Indian democracy from the "clutches of ‘vote chors’ (vote thieves)".
Announcing the "maha-rally" on December 14 starting at 1:30 PM, Congress General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal said, "the spectre of 'vote chori' is the biggest danger looming over our democracy today" and to send a message across the country against the attempts to destroy India's Constitution, they were holding rally.
"We have received crores of signatures from every corner of India, rejecting the BJP-ECI’s nefarious tactics like adding bogus voters, deleting opposition-inclined voters, and manipulating voter rolls at a mass scale. Not only that, every Indian has seen how the ECI bends rules, ignores MCC violations, and indulges in daylight bribery to help the BJP rig elections," he said.
"The ECI, which was once a neutral umpire, is now a blatantly partisan player - completely destroying the very concept of a level playing field in elections. We will not remain silent as this attack on the electoral system unfolds in front of our eyes," he said.
The decision on holding the rally was taken at a review meeting on Bihar results here earlier this week. The Congress has described the Bihar results as a 'vote chori' on a “gigantic scale masterminded by the PM, the HM, and the Election Commission”.
At the rally, the Congress is expected to highlight the signatures it collected against 'vote chori' since September after Rahul held his first press conference on 'vote chori' in August.
Earlier this month, Karnataka Congress handed over 1.12 crore signatures it collected while on Friday, the Punjab unit handed over 27 lakh signatures. Other state units also have handed over signatures it collected from respective states.