‘Dangerous conspiracy’ to tarnish India’s democracy, BJP hits back
NEW DELHI, July 3: The Congress on Friday said democracy faces the “gravest of threats” from the current dispensation, days after opposition parties urged the Supreme Court to take steps to restore the integrity and accountability of the electoral process.
In a letter to the Chief Justice of India, leaders of several Opposition parties had written, saying “democracies turn to anarchies when institutional mechanism fails” and “when the judiciary fails, it indicates a complete breakdown of the Republic”.
The opposition parties demanded that the entire SIR (special intensive revision) process be suspended and launched at a time when the next assembly election is at least five years away.
They also raised the alleged misuse of central agencies and sought serious consideration of restoring ballot papers where appropriate.
Sharing the opposition parties’ letter to the CJI in a post on X, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal said the Supreme Court is entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that injustice is not done and the free and fair nature of elections is protected.
“Electoral democracy in our country faces the gravest of threats from the Modi-Shah regime,” he said in his post.
Venugopal said that on June 28, 24 opposition parties, along with an Independent MP, wrote to the CJI on the flawed SIR process, the “partisan role” of the Election Commission of India and other election-related issues.
“It is the role of our judiciary to guard our democracy from the excesses of the executive – especially one which is hell-bent on destroying the Constitutional framework that gives us our democracy.
“In our democracy, the Supreme Court is entrusted with the onerous responsibility of ensuring injustice doesn’t prevail.
Therefore, it has a vital role to play in protecting the free and fair nature of elections, and also to make sure that they seen to be free and fair.
Without this, injustice against 1.4 billion voters persists every single day,” he said in his post.
“We are releasing this letter, in the interest of transparency, and in the hope that the Hon’ble Supreme Court will take the firm steps urgently required to restore the integrity and accountability of and faith in the election process of crores of our people,” Venugopal said.
TMC MP Derek O’Brien also said on X, “Significant.
This is the first time since five meetings of the INDIA bloc have been held, that parties opposed to the BJP, have jointly signed a letter/document”.
In their letter, various leaders of political parties said it is addressed to the Supreme Court through the CJI and is not intended to influence the decision of any cause pending before any court.
BJP RETORTS
The BJP on Wednesday hit out at the Congress and other opposition parties over their letter to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on the SIR and other issues, calling it a “dangerous conspiracy” to tarnish India’s democracy and spread anarchy in the country.
“With this, they have made another unsuccessful attempt to attack democracy.”
“The BJP vehemently condemns it,” party spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi told reporters, reacting to the opposition parties’ letter to the CJI.
The Congress on Friday said democracy faces the “gravest of threats” from the current dispensation, days after opposition parties urged the Supreme Court to take steps to restore the integrity and accountability of the electoral process.
Slamming the opposition parties for their letter to the CJI, Trivedi said, “This is a dangerous conspiracy, aimed at tarnishing India’s democracy and spreading anarchy.” “Having become completely unhinged, these defeated (political) parties now seek to avenge their loss by wishing for India’s ruin and chaos,” he charged.
Taking on the Congress, the BJP spokesperson said the style and language used in their letter to the Supreme Court is “reminiscent” of what was seen during the period of Emergency.
“Is it not true that senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor stated on a TV programme that the Congress benefited from the voter list revision conducted under the SIR process in Kerala as the names of fake voters allegedly added by the Communist parties were removed from the electoral rolls?” Trivedi asked the main opposition party. (PTI)
