Rahul Gandhi, others detained at Delhi protest against ‘vote theft’
Monitoring Desk
NEW DELHI: New Delhi police briefly detained Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other opposition members on Monday as they protested a controversial revised electoral roll in Bihar and alleged “vote theft” by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The credibility of elections has rarely been questioned in recent decades in the world’s most populous democracy. Some analysts say the opposition accusations could damage Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he navigates one of the toughest periods of his 11 years in office.
The opposition members were taken into custody midway while marching from the parliament to the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters in New Delhi as they protested the roll revision.
Nearly two hours later, Congress lawmaker Kishori Lal Sharma said Gandhi and other opposition leaders had been released.
“The police detained us but now we have been released,” he told the media, adding that the police had not allowed them to go to the ECI as promised, and instead took them to the police station.
“We are now heading to the parliament,” he added.
As the police attempted to thwart the protest by around 300 opposition members, some MPs climbed up to the barricade — set up by the police ahead of the march — and chanted slogans against the ECI and Modi’s government. The protestors carried placards alleging “vote theft”, PTI said.
A statement posted on Gandhi’s X account shortly after he was detained said: “The truth of vote theft is now before the country.
“This fight is not political — it is a fight to protect democracy, the constitution, and the right to ‘one person, one vote’,” he added.
“The united opposition and every voter in the country demands a clean and transparent voter list,” the Congress leader added.
Gandhi and Congress have alleged that voters’ lists in states where the party lost are corrupted, with voters’ names deleted or included more than once to rig elections in favour of Modi’s BJP.
Opposition parties have also criticised the ECI’s decision to revise the voters’ list in the key northern state of Bihar just before state elections due later this year, saying it aims to disenfranchise large numbers of poor voters.
The BJP and the ECI have rejected the accusations.
