Bihar voter list revision is ‘greatest threat’ to democracy, claims Congress

The Congress Working Committee on Wednesday reiterated that the “conspiracy” of the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission in Bihar is the “greatest threat” to the country’s democracy.

In an appeal to voters in Bihar, the Opposition party alleged that the exercise had been designed to “systematically rob” the right to vote from marginalised communities, adding that this disenfranchisement would led to “snatching away their rights” to welfare schemes and reservations.

The committee, in another resolution, claimed that the voter roll revision was yet another “dirty trick” from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s “toolkit” to “manipulate electoral rolls and cling on to power”.

The two resolutions were passed during the Congress Working Committee meeting in Patna chaired by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and attended by several leaders including Rahul Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, KC Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh and Ajay Maken.

This was the first meeting of the Congress Working Committee, a key decision-making body of the party, in Bihar since 1940.

The meeting came ahead of the Assembly elections in Bihar, which is expected to be held in October or November. The party passed a series of resolutions in light of the upcoming polls.

In one of the resolutions, the Congress Working Committee said that the “revelation of large-scale vote chori [theft]...

Read more