PoliticsOpposition
CEC offered to meet protesters but they never sent a list, says Meghwal
Speaking in Kochi on Sunday, the Law Minister called the INDIA bloc's mock parliament a mockery of democracy, as NDA leaders in Bihar accused the opposition of manufacturing controversies.
Key points
- Arjun Ram Meghwal said Gyanesh Kumar offered to meet a protesters' delegation, but no list was ever sent.
- He called the INDIA bloc's mock parliament a 'mockery of the democratic system'.
- In Patna, BJP's Mangal Pandey said the opposition was 'trying to manufacture controversies'.
Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said on Sunday that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had offered to meet the protesters demanding his removal, but they had never taken him up on it.
Speaking at a BJP debate on the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Kochi, Meghwal said Kumar had asked the protesters to fix a date and time and send him the names of their delegation. “But they never gave that list,” he said.
His remarks came hours after the INDIA bloc’s rally at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi, where opposition leaders repeated their charge of “vote chori” and demanded the CEC’s resignation.
‘Mockery’ of democracy
Meghwal turned on the opposition’s mock parliament, held in Delhi on Saturday, at which INDIA bloc MPs staged a symbolic impeachment of the CEC. He called it a “mockery of the democratic system”. He also said opposition leaders had met President Droupadi Murmu but could not produce proof of their allegations when she asked for it. Before he finished, the minister sang a song about Prime Minister Narendra Modi staying in power and invited the audience to join in.
Bihar NDA joins in
In Patna, leaders of Bihar’s ruling NDA also went after the rally. Former minister and BJP leader Mangal Pandey said the Election Commission had carried out the SIR transparently. “The opposition is trying to manufacture controversies without any substantive basis,” he said.
JD(U) national spokesperson Rajeev Ranjan Prasad said the opposition had offered no evidence for the ‘vote chori’ charge and claimed the turnout was poor. He asked why the Congress questioned only the results it lost, pointing to its wins in Karnataka, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh. He called the alliance “fragile and marked by internal contradictions” and said its members “have their daggers out against each other”, citing reports of a seat-sharing dispute between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party before the Uttar Pradesh election.