Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Sunday called for an “absolutely clean election register” and said voters’ constitutional rights must be protected. He alleged that the Election Commission’s actions had led to the deletion of a large number of names from the electoral rolls.
Speaking at the INDIA bloc’s mega rally at Ramlila Maidan, Tharoor called the removal of names on such a scale unacceptable and said eligible voters must not be deprived of their rights.
“What we need is an absolutely clean election register. It is better to have one or two dead people there than cut out 130 million real people,” he said.
Tharoor alleged that the Election Commission’s actions had hit a significant section of the electorate, and said the INDIA bloc had come together to raise the issue. “The constitutional rights of the Indian people should not be taken away by the Election Commission. What they did was simply wrong,” he said.
He added that India had held free and fair elections for 80 years without such problems or mass deletions. Citing Rahul Gandhi’s remarks from the previous day, he said 15% of the country’s adult population had been cut, which he called unacceptable.
Tharoor said the bloc wanted to take everyone along and that the rally would send a clear message to constitutional authorities that citizens’ rights must be protected.
Congress MP Amar Singh, meanwhile, alleged that elections were no longer fair or conducted with integrity. He accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of being in league with the ruling party and demanded his removal.
“We will continue our agitation until Gyanesh Kumar steps down,” he said.
The ‘Chalo Delhi’ rally was scheduled to begin at 11 am. MPs were to gather at the Constitution Club and proceed to the venue from the Minto Road-Connaught Place junction at noon.
Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Mamata Banerjee, Abhishek Banerjee, Hemant Soren, Revanth Reddy, Tejashwi Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav were among the top Opposition leaders expected to attend.
