new delhi, july 11
Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, on Friday lashed out at the BJP and the Election Commission of India, alleging that “a new conspiracy has been hatched to steal the upcoming Bihar election.”
Addressing the ‘Samvidhan Bachao Samavesh’ here at Baramunda Ground, the senior congress leader charged that the election was ‘stolen’ in Maharashtra in the past; similarly, an attempt to steal the Bihar election is being made.
“BJP is attacking the Constitution throughout the country. Yesterday, I was in Bihar. As the election was stolen in Maharashtra, the Election Commission of India, in collusion with the BJP, is acting in a similar fashion to steal the Bihar election”, he said. Accusing the ECI of hatching a new conspiracy to steal the election in Bihar, he alleged that the top poll body is acting like an agent of the BJP and is not doing its duty.
Citing the alleged manipulative practices in Maharashtra, Gandhi said, “As many as one crore new voters were added in between the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. Nobody knows who these voters are and where they come from. We have appealed to the ECI several times to provide us with the voters list, videography, but it has not paid heed to our plea”.
He claimed that ”a plot is on to repeat the vote theft which was perpetrated in Maharashtra by these people (BJP and ECI).”
”Yesterday, we held a meeting of the INDIA alliance and pledged to prevent the ECI from committing theft of election,” he said.
Criticising the Odisha model of BJP-led governance, he said, “The lone work of the BJP government in Odisha is to snatch away the wealth of poor people. The previous BJD government did it in the past. Now the BJP government is doing the same. On one side, there are poor and deprived sections, on the other side, there are five to six billionaires and the BJP government”. Dwelling on the alleged mismanagement during Puri Rath Yatra, Gandhi accused the Odisha Government of wilfully delaying the pulling of the chariot of Lord Jagannath to enable the family of industrialist Gautam Adani to pull the chariots.
”This is the Odisha model of governance. Development is being done to serve the interest of two or three industrialists while the wealth of poor, deprived, and marginalised sections is being snatched,” he alleged further.
Highlighting the ”prevailing unsafe environs for women”, he said ”Odisha holds the inglorious track record of registering as many as 15 rape cases every day”. He claimed that as many as 40,000 women have gone missing for a long time, and there is no trace of them.”
