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‘Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Vadra should resign’: BJP's dare to Congress on EVM row
The Bharatiya Janata Party took a dig at Congress for raising questions on the country's electoral process, including EVM's integrity.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took a dig at Congress for questioning EVM's integrity, saying all the chief ministers and other elected representatives from the grand old party like Rahul Gandhi should first resign and declare that they will contest only after the ballot papers are brought back.
“Such a stand will underscore their trust in the issues being raised by them,” BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia was quoted by PTI as saying on Saturday,
According to Bhatia, the party’s allegations will otherwise be “nothing but empty words.”
He also asked the Congress to move to the courts over the issue, while stressing that the Supreme Court has already given a clean chit to the Election Commission over the transparency of the electoral process and the integrity of Electoral Voting Machines many times in recent years.
“Congress chief ministers, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra should resign as they were elected through the same electoral process the opposition party is questioning,” Bhatia said.
According to Bhatia, it was an “ironic” to see Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge questioning the electoral process and the EVMs on the same day that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra took oath as the newly-elected MP from Kerala’s Vayanad.
Bhatia said the “Congress will soon be confined to history books”.
BJP's landslide and EVM concerns
The BJP-led Mahayuti alliance won a landslide mandate in the recently concluded Maharashtra Assembly elections, winning 233 seats in the 288-member house. The BJP on its own won 132 seats while its partners Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) and the NCP (Ajit Pawar faction) won 57 and 41 seats respectively.
The Congress wrote to the Election Commission alleging disparities in the number of votes counted and the number of votes polled, among other grievances. The apex poll panel rejected the claims and invited a party delegation to address the claims on December 3.
