Mounting its attack on Congress, the BJP accused the grand old party of being the “mother of electoral fraud”.
In a social media post on Wednesday, the BJP cited a series of alleged frauds that the Congress indulged in during the early years of independent India.
It listed five instances between 1952 and 1987, saying Congress leaders, including former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, engaged in malpractices to secure victories in the elections, it said in the post, which also carried infographics.
The first instance occurred in 1952, when Congress and Communist leaders ‘colluded’ to defeat Dr BR Ambedkar in elections, it said.
With images of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi in the social media post, the BJP captioned it: “The mother of electoral fraud is Congress”, adding the slogan, “Congress’s attack on democracy – 1952, 1957, 1967, 1975, 1987… still continuing.”
The second example cited by the BJP was from 1957, when Congress supporters allegedly carried out India’s first-ever booth capturing in Begusarai, Bihar.
It further accused the party of manipulating the 1967 Jammu and Kashmir elections, claiming that opposition nominations were rejected en masse, allowing the party to win 61 seats uncontested.
Former prime minister Indira Gandhi, it alleged, secured her 1975 Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat through rigging, an election result later challenged in court, leading to the imposition of the Emergency.
Another incident mentioned by the saffrom party was from 1987, when Congress, in alliance with the National Conference, allegedly rigged the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections – an event often cited by analysts as a trigger for the beginning of insurgency in the valley.
It comes amid an increasingly heated political climate, with both parties accusing each other on various fronts in the run-up to key state elections in Bihar, and the next year’s assembly elections in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.