Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday told party workers to remain alert and “expose the Narendra Modi government’s vote theft”.
“We realised during the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections that they were stealing the votes of poor people, who were not aware of their rights. You have to be careful and expose the government. You have to widen the reach of our ‘vote chor, gaddi chhod’ campaign,” the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha was quoted as saying in a meeting of booth-level Congress workers in Harchandpur, Rae Bareli, on Wednesday. Rahul is on a two-day tour of his constituency.
Earlier, Rahul had told reporters: “This vote chor, gaddi chhod campaign (that began in Bihar) is spreading like fire. This is why they (the government) are disturbed.”
Asked if he would widen the canvas of the campaign, he said with a smile: “Give me some time and see what happens.”
“It is being proved across the country that the government is stealing votes (by removing genuine voters from the electoral rolls). We’ll prove it again and again and again in more and more dramatic ways,” Rahul added.
Earlier in the day, posters of Rahul, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and RJD leader Tejeshwi Yadav were put up across the constituency with captions: “India ki antim asha — Kalyug ke Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh (The last hope of India — Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh of Kalyug).”
Rahul Nirmal Baghi, a lawyer and state secretary of the Samajwadi Party youth wing who was part of the poster-making initiative, said it was a gesture to “welcome Rahul Gandhi, a friend of Akhilesh and Tejashwi”.
“It is also a message to poll-bound Bihar to identify their true friends and reject the BJP and its allies,” he said.
The poster infused excitement among Congress workers, who were preparing to welcome their leader. Carrying garlands, they gathered at several places on the route Rahul was supposed to take, raising slogans for him and against the BJP government.