Bengaluru, Aug 7 (PTI) The stage is set for Congress party’s ‘Vote Adhikar Rally’, a mega show of strength alleging electoral fraud during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Opposition Leader in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi will address the party’s ‘Vote adhikar rally’ at Bengaluru’s Freedom Park on August 8, organised in protest against the alleged vote theft , the party said.
Through ‘Vote Adhikar Rally’, Congress has decided to use Karnataka as a launch pad for a movement against electoral fraud.
The party organised a preparatory meeting on Wednesday that was attended by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Congress State President and Deputy CM D K Shivakumar, Congress general secretary and Karnataka in charge Randeep Singh Surjewala, host of party leaders and ministers.
Party has taken voting pattern and voter list in Mahadevapura assembly segment as the sample to prove its point. In the whole Lok Sabha seat, the Congress got 6,26,208 votes while the BJP got 6,58,915, a margin of 32,707.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday claimed that while it won six out of seven segments, it lost in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in which it was defeated by over 1,14,000 votes.
The protest is happening at a time when the crucial Bihar assembly polls are round the corner.
Following Gandhi’s allegation, Surjewala alleged in a post on ‘X’ on Thursday that the “Election Commission of India (ECI) is colluding with the BJP” and destroying democracy and the Constitution.
The Election Commission was created to be the guardian of free and fair elections. Let it not be the funeral director of Indian democracy, the Congress general secretary said.
“Karnataka will be the launchpad for our resistance. We will expose this fraud, street by street and booth by booth. The time for silence is over. The time to resist is now,” he said. PTI GMS GMS ADB
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