Congress to launch nationwide 'Vote chor, gaddi chhodd' rally on August 14

New Delhi [India], August 12 (ANI): Congress MP KC Venugopal on Tuesday announced that the party will hold a 'Vote chor, gaddi chhodd' rally at 8 pm on August 14, in all districts across the country.
The protest is being organised in response to the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar and Congress' allegations of "vote theft" by the ruling party, which the party claims the poll body has failed to address.
The announcement came after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge chaired a meeting of General Secretaries and In-Charges at the party headquarters in New Delhi earlier in the day.
Venugopal informed that the Congress party will also launch a nationwide signature campaign from September 15 to October 16, with a target of collecting five crore signatures to be submitted to the Election Commission of India.
"On 14th August, we will do a night march all over India, a district-level night march. 'Vote chor, gaddi chhodd' rally at 8 pm on 14th August, in all districts. Then from August 21 to September 7, we will do state-level 'Vote chor, gaddi chhodd' rallies...From September 15 to October 15, a massive signature campaign will take place with the same slogan. We will submit 5 crore signatures to the EC, KC Venugopal told ANI.
The Congress MP stated that the party would escalate its protests to the grassroots level of people in India and alleged that the ECI was "siding" with the Union Government.
"We have decided on a series of actions to follow up on this issue (SIR) on a bigger level. We will take it to the bottom level of the people of India. Now it is very clear that the Election Commission is totally siding with the government for vote theft," Venugopal said.
Congress MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said that the ECI is "finishing" democracy in India, and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of undermining the role of voters.
"The manner in which the Election Commission is functioning, they are working towards finishing the democracy of India. We will have to face them. BJP wants the Election Commission, and we want democracy. Earlier, voters used to elect Governments. Now, the Government has started electing voters...If they have a conscience, they should step aside on their own," Randhawa said.
Another Congress MP, Saptagiri Ulaka, stated that the meeting focused on taking the "vote theft" issue raised in Parliament to the grassroots level.
"It was discussed as to how we can take the vote theft issue raised by us in the Parliament to the ground level, how this can reach every district and every panchayat. Everyone made suggestions and a detailed program will be released by AICC. We will take the next steps for this," he said.
Meanwhile, other than Mallikarjun Kharge, the meeting was attended by senior party leaders, including Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Sachin Pilot, KC Venugopal, Kumari Selja and others. (ANI)