‘Everything Is Fine’: Shashi Tharoor Reacts To His Absence From Congress' Delhi Rally

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said he was absent from his party’s ‘Vote Chor Gaddi Chhod’ rally in Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan because of “prior commitments”. His absence from the rally had raised speculations in political circles.

“I was abroad yesterday. It was a commitment I had made six months ago. From my side, everything is fine,” Tharoor was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Congress leaders on Sunday attacked the BJP and the election commissioners at a rally in the national capital, alleging that “vote chori” is in the ruling party’s DNA and its leaders were “gaddar” who were conspiring to take away voting rights of people and should be removed from power.

Addressing a ‘Vote Chor Gaddi Chhod’ mega rally at the Ramlila grounds as the Congress

sought to build public support on the issue after its Bihar defeat, Rahul Gandhi vowed to oust the “Narendra Modi-RSS government” by following the path of truth and non-violence as shown by Mahatma Gandhi.

“This fight is between ‘satya’ and ‘asatya’ (truth and untruth). We will stand behind ‘satya’ and will remove Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and RSS government from the country. They have ‘satta’ (power) and they indulge in ‘vote chori’,” he said.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge alleged that the BJP leadership was “gaddar” (traitors) as they were indulging in “vote theft” and should be removed to save the Constitution and the country.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too challenged the BJP to win a fair election with paper ballot voting and asserted that the election commissioners would have to answer to the country on how they “conspired” to take away people’s voting rights and made every step of the poll process “suspicious”.

A huge turnout of Congress workers from across India marked the party’s mega rally against ‘vote chori’ as slogans of ‘vote chor, gaddi chhod’ reverberated at the venue. The party claimed it has collected around six crore signatures against “vote theft” and will present the same to the President of India.