BJP accused of ‘vote theft’ in vice-presidential polls
A day after the vice-presidential polls, where the Opposition got fewer votes than its collective strength in the two Houses of Parliament, Congress MP and Whip in the Lok Sabha Manickam Tagore accused the BJP of “vote theft” even as a shadow of doubt is being thrown at the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Aam Aadmi Party for allegedly helping the ruling alliance boost its tally.
Opposition leaders have also started informal investigations into how votes were lost. As per their own estimate, despite pulling off a near-perfect attendance, their candidate was at least 15 votes short of the projected number. According to one estimate, cross-votes or invalid votes were made by members of six parties.
“We can’t speak about how the NDA [National Democratic Alliance] votes swelled more than their strength. We analysed the 300 votes we got. We cannot account for three Shiv Sena (UBT) votes, 4 Aam Aadmi Party votes, two NCP (Sharad Pawar) votes and one or two votes from Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. Of course, we cannot authoritatively say whether these were found to be invalid or these members voted with the government,” said an Opposition leader, requesting anonymity. The Congress is unable to account for one vote and the Samajwadi Party for two votes.
Mr. Tagore who was one of the key coordinators, in a long post on X, raised several questions, alluding to “vote chori” in the Vice-Presidential election.
He asked, “ Why is Shinde [Shiv Sena MP Srikanth Shinde] thanking INDIA MPs for voting with NDA? Why is Minister Kiren Rijiju celebrating ‘conscience votes’ from Opposition MPs? Is this really conscience? Or is this CBI/ED pressure and horse trading being justified as conscience?”
When BJP leaders themselves admit that votes from the Opposition went to the NDA, was it not proof of “vote chori” inside Parliament itself, Mr. Tagore asked.
He said, “From Karnataka’s Bengaluru Central to Aadhaar-linked voter suppression to now V-P polls. Is the Modi-Shah model only about winning through vote chori? Will democracy survive if Ministers boast about stealing votes instead of respecting the mandate? Or will people answer the BJP’s vote chori politics in 2029?”
Striking a different note, the Trinamool Congress’s Rajya Sabha Parliamentary Party leader Derek O’ Brien said that numbers were not significant in an ideological battle. “Let me give you a few numbers, it has been 2,277 days without a Deputy Speaker in Lok Sabha, it has been 861 days since violence began in Manipur, it has been 14 days since U.S. imposed increased tariff on imports from India, it is 966 days that Union Minister J.P. Nadda has overstayed as BJP president, it has been 1,281 days since MGNREGA was stopped in West Bengal and finally, it has been 4,116 days since Prime Minister Narendra Modi answered a question in Lok Sabha,” Mr. O’ Brien said, stressing that these numbers were far more essential to hold the government accountable than the Vice-Presidential election arithmetic.