‘Ready to contest on ballot paper’: Himanta lobs dare at Cong but with a big rider

Himanta slammed Rahul and challenged

NEW DELHI: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma slammed Congress amid the ongoing INDIA bloc protest against SIR and ‘vote chori’, while directly challenging Rahul that he’s ready to contest on ballot paper if Congress govt’s in Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka resign.Addressing a press conference in Guwahati, he hit out at Rahul and the Congress and challenged, “I am ready to contest on the ballot paper if Rahul Gandhi and Congress are ready for their governments’ resignations. The Kerala, Karnataka and Telangana governments must resign because those governments were also formed through ‘vote chori’ under Gyanesh Kumar.”“Today, the Congress doesn’t even have enough people to stage a protest in Delhi. They had to hire and bring people in from Assam, gathering them from all over the country… I am ready,” Himanta further said.Further continuing his jab, he added, “Make the proposal; I want to set a standard where I resign as an MP and then launch a movement.”He also defended the SIR saying, “The SIR is needed in India. Assam, West Bengal and Jharkhand’s demography changed due to huge illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is taking place every day, and if we cannot delete their names from the voter list, India’s demography will change.”“I demand that there should be an SIR every five years. Only then will Indian democracy be saved,” he added.He further described the Congress’s ‘vote chori’ protest as an attempt to effect regime change without public support. “Without any people’s support, only 2,000-3,000 people are joining Rahul Gandhi. This entire protest is carried out by a bunch of frustrated people and ‘dimagi naxals’, who do not want India to grow,” the chief minister added.This comes as the INDIA bloc on Monday staged a march towards the Supreme Court, led by Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, to protest alleged electoral irregularities linked to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls and demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The protest followed Chief Justice of India Surya Kant’s refusal to meet opposition leaders, saying they should approach the court through legal channels as the matter was already pending.

The Supreme Court permitted a delegation of 10-15 Congress leaders to enter its premises to file a petition challenging the Election Commission and the three election commissioners, while opposition leaders accused the poll body of bias and demanded that deleted voter names be restored and the SIR exercise scrapped.