Opposition MPs, including Leaders of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, took out a protest march from Parliament House to the Election Commission against the revision of electoral rolls in Bihar and alleged “vote chori” but were stopped midway by the police and detained amid high drama.
Police put up barricades outside PTI Building on the way to prevent the MPs, protesting the voter roll revision in Bihar and the alleged poll rigging, from marching forward. As the MPs were stopped, many of them sat on the road and raised slogans while some women MPs, including saree-clad TMC’s Mahua Moitra and the Congress’ Sanjana Jatav and Jothimani, climbed the barricading and raised slogans against the EC.
They were later whisked away by police in buses lined up along the road and taken to the Parliament Street Police Station. All the MPs were later released.”This fight is not political, but it is aimed at saving the Constitution. This fight is for ‘one man, one vote’ and we want a clean, pure voter list,” Rahul Gandhi said as he was being taken away in a bus after being detained.
“They cannot talk as the truth is before the entire nation….,” he said.
TMC’s Moitra and Mitali Bag also fainted during the protest and were helped by Rahul Gandhi.
Kharge, who was also detained from outside the PTI building, said the protest against ‘vote chori’ and SIR is a fight to protect people’s right to vote and a struggle to save democracy and the INDIA bloc will expose this BJP’s conspiracy.
In a post on X, he said, “BJP’s cowardly dictatorship will not work!”.
“This is a fight to protect the people’s right to vote. This is a struggle to save democracy,” he said.
“The allies of the INDIA bloc will surely expose this BJP conspiracy to shred the Constitution,” Kharge said in his post in Hindi.
Prominent among those who participated in the march were NCP-SP’s Sharad Pawar, T R Baalu (DMK), Sanjay Raut (SS-UBT), Derek O’Brien (TMC), Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, as well as other MPs from opposition parties like the DMK, the RJD, Left parties.
AAP leaders, including Sanjay Singh, also took part in the protest march.
