Rahul Gandhi has tea with 'dead' voters from Bihar
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said he had a unique experience of having tea with some "dead" voters from Bihar and thanked the Election Commission (EC) for it.
The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha met a group of seven voters at his residence, who told him how they were declared "dead" by the poll body and their names were removed from the electoral rolls after the controversial 'special intensive revision', of the voter list.
The Congress later named all seven 'dead' voters - Ramikbal Ray, Harendra Ray, Lalmuni Devi, Vachiya Devi, Lalwati Devi, Punam Kumari, and Munna Kumar, all of whom live in Raghopur.
"There have been many interesting experiences in life, but I never got the chance to have tea with 'dead people'. For this unique experience, thank you Election Commission!" Gandhi said in a post on X.
Gandhi shared a four-minute video interaction with the seven 'dead' voters, in which he asked them how they discovered the Election Commission had 'killed' them.
One of the 'dead' said they found out only after ECI released a draft list of 65 lakh excluded names.
“But I am alive. I have come to declare I am not dead,” he told Gandhi. “And sir, in one panchayat, there are at least 50 others who are not 'dead'.”
Gandhi was further told there were others, stuck in a similar circumstance, who had not yet reached the meeting.
"They are from Raghopur (RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav's seat) … there is a flood there," another man told Gandhi, and then pointed to an 85-year-old who too had been declared 'dead.’
"They were removed despite having completed the paperwork for re-verification," a party worker who accompanied them explained, "They have not published names of people declared 'dead'."
"This is not a clerical error - it is political disenfranchisement in plain sight," said Congress.
Gandhi assured all of them he would not allow 'vote chori', or the stealing of votes.
Gandhi has been leading the charge against ‘collusion’ between Election Commission of India and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, The saffron party and the poll panel, he has alleged, conspired to commit voter fraud in Karnataka and Maharashtra last year, and are trying to do the same for the Bihar.
