Congress leaders on Thursday questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his comments on the recent Legislative Council (MLC) election results, with Gaurav Gogoi accusing him of remaining silent on alleged electoral irregularities and Manish Tewari objecting to comparisons between elections held under different circumstances.
Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi asked why the Prime Minister was commenting on MLC polls instead of addressing what he termed the “stealing of democracy”.
“Why is the PM not speaking on the stealing of democracy? We have heard what the Union Home Minister had to say. Why can’t the PM speak on this most important observation? Instead, he is speaking on MLC elections,” Gogoi told ANI.
Tewari said elections with different contexts and electoral colleges could not be compared. Speaking in Chandigarh, he argued that such comparisons were inappropriate for someone holding the office of Prime Minister.
“Every election has a different context. The scope of the MLC elections and their electoral college are entirely distinct. Therefore, comparing one election to another in this context is not becoming of someone holding the office of the Prime Minister,” he said.
The Congress MP also questioned the purpose of the padyatra led by BJP president Nitin Nabin, alleging that 13 crore people had been disenfranchised. He said restoring their voting rights would help normalise the situation.
“What is the purpose of their padyatra? If they were to restore the voting rights of 13 crore people who have been disenfranchised, the situation would normalise on its own,” Tewari said.
“It is a strange irony that those in government—who are the very ones responsible for this situation—are now organising a padyatra merely to gloss over the issue,” he added.
Meanwhile, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Akhilesh Prasad Singh called for an end to MLC elections held through graduates’ and teachers’ constituencies, alleging that money played a major role in the process.
“The candidates that get elected in such elections (one with graduates’ and teachers’ constituencies), you ask them about the exchange of money and how candidates are brought. This is an election of money. Such elections should be stopped,” Singh told ANI.
Singh clarified that the Congress’s demand for paper ballots concerned direct elections and did not extend to MLC polls, which use a preferential voting system. Under this system, votes are counted in multiple rounds before the final result is declared.
“This is certainly a ballot box election, but it is a preferential vote. One vote is counted three times, and only then does the result come out, whereas in a ballot box election, the votes cast by whoever are counted right then. So we were not demanding elections of this kind,” he said.
The Congress leaders’ criticism followed Modi’s social media post praising the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) victory in the MLC elections, which he described as a reaffirmation of public trust in the ruling coalition.
