Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, who along with other SP MPs and Opposition leaders from the INDIA bloc was taken into custody on Tuesday after police intercepted their march towards the Election Commission headquarters in Delhi, said they did not fear arrest. He also accused the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of colluding with the BJP and demanded his resignation.
The protest against CEC Gyanesh Kumar, began from the Makar Dwar of Parliament as leaders and MPs of the INDIA bloc set out to highlight alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list and the broader election process. Delhi Police stopped the march midway, after which the Opposition MPs sat on the road and staged a sit-in.
“Those who fight for the country do not fear arrest,” Yadav said, alleging that the BJP and the CEC were one and the same. “There is a national consensus that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar should resign,” he added.
Targeting the ruling party’s push for “One Nation, One Election,” Yadav alleged that its real intent was a “Chandigarh-style manoeuvre” designed to wrap everything up in a single round of elections so that “fraud would not need to be committed repeatedly.”
“The fewer times fraud or a scam is committed, the lower the risk of getting caught,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“The fewer times fraud or a scam is committed, the lower the risk of getting caught,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}He suggested that instead of “One Nation, One Election,” BJP leaders should call it “One Corruption, One Election”, terming it a “conspiracy to hold elections just one more time, after which polls would never be held again.”
After the sit-in, police briefly took Akhilesh Yadav and the other leaders into custody before releasing them.