SIR an institutional way of stealing votes: Rahul Gandhi

·Questions neutrality of Election Commission

ARARIA (BIHAR : Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today said that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was an institutionalised way of stealing votes in Bihar. But, he added, the opposition grand alliance Mahagathbandhan will not allow that to happen.

Addressing a joint press conference, the Mahagathbandhan leaders said that there was complete ideological and strategic cohesion among the parties in the grand alliance and it was getting reflected during the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’, which was getting huge response.

Besides Rahul Gandhi, Tejashwi Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Pawan Khera, Chairperson of the AICC Media and Publicity Department, Dipankar Bhattacharya of the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist and Mukesh Sahani of the Vikassheel Insaan Party addressed the joint press conference.

Speaking on the occasion, Gandhi said the overwhelming support for the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ was proof that crores of people in Bihar acknowledge the reality of electoral manipulation and are determined to stop it. He revealed that during the ‘Yatra’, kids as young as 6-year-olds have started saying, ‘Vote Chor, Gaddi Chhor’.

Rahul Gandhi asserted that the alliance partners would not allow the Election Commission and the BJP to steal elections in Bihar. He said, he had proved beyond any doubt how one lakh fake voters were included in Mahadevapura assembly segment. He said, instead of taking any action, the Election Commission of India asked him to file an affidavit.

Proving the point that the ECI was partial, Gandhi said, when BJP leader Anurag Thakur made the same allegations which he had made earlier, the ECI did not ask him to submit an affidavit, even to this day.

Gandhi pointed out, the entire opposition is speaking against the deletion of voters from the electoral rolls, but not the BJP. This, he noted, proves that there is a partnership between the Election Commission and the BJP.

On a question about farmers, Gandhi said the Mahagathbandhan will prepare a Bihar-specific manifesto that will focus on debt relief, storage and export-import facilities to protect farmers from exploitation.

Tejashwi Yadav accused the Election Commission of acting like another cell of the BJP. He said it was no longer the Election Commission, but the ‘Godi Commission’. He also pointed out how the Modi government had passed a law granting legal immunity to the Election Commissioners from any action, while making a law to remove Chief Ministers if they remain behind bars for a month.

Replying to a question, Dipankar Bhattacharya said, if anyone was responsible for the erosion of the credibility of the Election Commission, it was the Commission itself, which had now become the ‘Election Omission of India