The INDIA bloc launched a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) after their act of treason and unconstitutional meddling in the Chandigarh Mayor elections. The leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress, in a joint press conference, termed the election as unconstitutional and illegal fraud of the BJP.
AAP leader Raghav Chadha, Congress leader Pawan Bansal, AAP Chandigarh incharge Jarnail Singh, AAP leader Prem Garg and Congress Chandigarh President Harmohinder Singh Lucky addressed a press conference to expose BJP's treason to our constitution and rejected the election.
Addressing the media, on Tuesday, AAP's Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha said that the Chandigarh mayoral election was a 'farjiwada', executed by the BJP. He said that it is unconstitutional, illegal, anti-national and a treason, what the BJP just did in this Mayor election. Chadha added that everyone knows that the INDIA bloc had 20 votes (13 AAP councilors and 7 Congress councilors) and the BJP had 16 (14 councilors, 1 MP and 1 SAD councilor). So the BJP conspired against the democracy to win an election.
Chadha said that first the presiding officer fell ill and they postponed the election till February 6th, but after we approached the honorable High Court, a new date of January 30th was decided for election. After cancelling the election on January 18th, BJP tried to execute their Operation Lotus and tried to poach our councilors but when they did not succeeded in this, they appointed Anil Masih, a BJP person who is also their minority wing secretary, as the new presiding officer for this election.
Chadha said that at the time of counting no election agents of their parties were allowed near the counting table, when this is the rule that all election agents are present at the time of counting and any vote that is declared invalid first shown to the election agent and Deputy Commissioner and with their consent only it can be declared invalid. But no rules were followed in counting and declaring the votes as invalid. Chadha said that 8 out of 20 votes of the INDIA alliance were declared invalid which is unprecedented in the history of Chandigarh Mayor elections, not even one vote of the BJP was invalid.
He alleged that the presiding officer himself tampered with the ballot papers to make votes of the INDIA alliance councilors invalid. Chadha said that no protocol or rules were followed in this election, present election officers or the DC didn't not listen to any objects of our councilors.
He said that normally when anyone raises any objection during election process, DC and the election officer solve those issues before continuing but here they continued this 'farjiwada' without addressing anything. They even took all the ballot papers and locked them in a room to hide their fraud.
AAP leader said that this only a Mayor's election what will the BJP do in the general elections where they will be facing the full strength of the INDIA alliance. He added that the BJP wants to turn India into North Korea, they only want elections when they are winning by rigging the whole system and election process.
He demanded an action against the presiding officer and the BJP saying that Anil Masih should be arrested immediately as the people or any party who is responsible for murdering our democracy have no right to roam freely. Responding to a statement of Kirron Kher, Chadha said that the BJP had indeed created history, history of murdering our democracy and constitution, history of such fraud in Chandigarh Mayor election.
Raghav Chadha said that the BJP is so scared of the INDIA alliance that they are adopting such unconstitutional routes to win an election. But, an action should be taken in this case as soon as possible otherwise the people will lose their faith in the election process and our democracy. He further said that we must learn from this whole incident. He urged the people of our country to vote in 2024 not to defeat or win anyone, but to save our democracy.
Addressing the media Congress leader Pawan Bansal said that this is the Jangle Raj of the BJP that we are fighting against. He said that we (INDIA alliance) came together to save our democracy. In Chandigarh it was the beginning of INDIA vs BJP, but the unnerved BJP took unimaginative actions to win this election when they were clearly losing.
First they postponed the election, then they tried to poach our councilors, then they appointed a BJP leader as presiding officer for this election who tempered with the ballot papers of our councilors to invalidate the votes, their imposter presiding officer was doing it all by himself when he is there just to oversee the election process.
Bansal said that even the media was not allowed inside to cover the election. He said that this was not an election but a disgusting joke of the BJP so, it has now become much more important to defeat them. He said that if the BJP came to power one more time in 2024 they would eradicate the election process and kill our democracy.