Hyderabad, Nov 1 (PTI) Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Sunday alleged that the BJP was trying to retain power by deleting the votes of the poor through the SIR of electoral rolls, and said Telangana Congress workers had come to New Delhi as a vanara sena (army of monkeys) to help defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom he likened to Ravana.
Addressing party workers at Telangana Bhavan in Delhi before they marched to Ramlila Maidan for the INDIA bloc’s ‘Vote Bachao, Desh Bachao’ (Save the Vote, Save the Country) rally, Reddy alleged that the BJP had won Bihar, West Bengal and Maharashtra by removing the votes of the poor.
“Like how the vanara sena marched in (Sri) Lanka to help Lord Ram in defeating Ravana, our vanara sena came from Telangana to New Delhi to defeat Modi who is like Ravana,” he claimed.
Ravana is the principal antagonist in the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana and its various retellings.
Vanaras are monkey-like beings in the Ramayana who fought alongside Lord Rama in his battle against Ravana.
Reddy alleged that Modi had secured a third consecutive term as PM by dividing people along caste, religious, linguistic and regional lines.
He claimed that the BJP had aimed to win 400 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to “abolish the Constitution”, end reservations and deprive women, Adivasis and Dalits of their voting rights.
However, he said, the people had foiled the plan by denying the BJP a majority on its own.
Since then, Reddy claimed, Modi had held a grudge against Dalits, Adivasis, minorities and women, and had sought to remove their names from the electoral rolls by appointing Gyanesh Kumar as chief election commissioner.
He further claimed that 13.50 crore voters had so far been removed from the rolls during the SIR and that the number could rise to 20 crore in the coming days.
“The votes of the poor are being removed as part of a conspiracy to delete 15-20 per cent of votes in the country to help BJP come to power again,” Reddy said.
He alleged that the Telangana Congress had sought to take 15,000 workers to the rally, but the railways denied a special train booking at the last minute after giving a false impression that trains would be provided.
Reddy asked whether Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Gyanesh Kumar could defeat the resolve of the Congress workers in reaching New Delhi.
“The throne of Narendra Modi must fall against the resolve of our workers in Ramlila Maidan not to rest until they achieve success. They must inevitably return to Gujarat,” he added. PTI SJR SSK
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