The New Delhi police briefly arrested the leader of Congress, Rahul Gandhi, and other opposition members on Monday while protested by a controversial electoral list reviewed in Bihar and alleged “theft of votes” by the ruler Bharatiya Janata party (BJP).
The credibility of the elections has rarely been questioned in recent decades in the most populous democracy in the world. Some analysts say that opposition accusations could damage Prime Minister Narendra Modi while sailing for one of the most difficult periods of his 11 years in office.
The members of the opposition were arrested halfway while marching from Parliament to the headquarters of the Electoral Commission of India (ECI) in New Delhi while protested by the review of the roll, the Press Trust of India (PTI) informed.
Almost two hours later, the legislator of the Kishori Lal Sharma Congress said that Gandhi and other opposition leaders had been released.
“The police arrested us, but now we have been released,” he told the media, and added that the police had not allowed them to go to the ECI as promised, and instead took them to the police station.
“Now we go to Parliament,” he added.
When the police tried to frustrate the protest for around 300 opposition members, some parliamentarians rose to the barricade, established by the police before the march, and sang slogans against the ECI and the Modi government. The protesters carried banners that alleged “theft of votes”, PTI saying.
A statement published in Gandhi’s X account shortly after he was arrested, he said: “The truth of the theft of votes is now before the country.
“This fight is not political: it is a struggle to protect democracy, the constitution and the right to ‘a person, a vote’,” he added.
“The united opposition and all voters in the country demand a list of clean and transparent voters,” added the leader of the Congress.
Gandhi and Congress have claimed that the voter lists in the states where the lost party is damaged, with the names of the voters eliminated or included more than once to manipulate the elections in favor of the BJP of Modi.
The opposition parties have also criticized the ECI decision to review the voter list in the state of the North Bihar key just before the state elections that expire at the end of this year, saying that it aims to deprive a large number of poor voters.
The BJP and the ECI have rejected the accusations.
In June, the special intensive review (Sir) of the Roll voters was announced before the next surveys in the eastern state of Bihar. The measure, which required that all potential voters provide citizenship evidence before July 25, caused fears at the national level of depriving the right to rights between Indian minorities, including Muslims and Dalit communities.
According PTIOther Protestant legislators detained included the general secretary of the Priyanka Gandhi Congress, the Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi party, Tr Baalu of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Sanjay Raut of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thakeray) and Derek O’bebrien del Tranames.
The parliamentarians of other opposition parties, such as the rashtriya Janata Dal, were also arrested, the report added.
‘Anarchy state’
The ECI has said that changes in voter lists are shared with political parties and all complaints are thoroughly investigated.
He has also said that voter lists should be reviewed to eliminate dead voters or those who have moved to other parts of the country, among others. Many voters in Bihar have told the BBC That Draft’s rolls have incorrect photos and include dead people.
“The new Draft rolls have 72.4 million names, 6.5 million less than before,” the BBC The report published today said.
The Congress and its allies have gone badly in two state surveys that they hoped to win after an impressive show in the general elections of last year, which saw BJP lose its majority and remain in power only with the help of regional parties.
The Congress has also complained about electronic voting machines and said that the counting process is not fair, the charges rejected by the election panel.
The BJP said the opposition parties were trying to create a “state of anarchy” sowing seeds of doubt about the electoral process.
“They are in a state of bankruptcy due to their continuing losses,” Dharmendra Pradhan education minister Pradhan, of the BJP, on Monday, journalists.
According to him PTI Report, the leader of the Congress, Jairam Ramesh, had written the ECI before and asked them to maintain discussions about the Sir of the Electoral Rolls, among other issues.
“Subsequently, parliamentarians want to meet collectively with the commission on a series of issues, including, among others, a special intensive review of electoral rolls that are carried out in Bihar and it is proposed to also be carried out in other states,” the PTI He cited him as saying.
“We hope to meet with the commission, which will be in line with the highest tradition of our parliamentary democracy,” he said, according to PTI.
