Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: The verdict on Chandigarh mayoral polls declaring AAP candidate as the winner is the second blow to the ruling BJP from the Supreme Court in five days after scrapping electoral bonds, lifting the spirits of the Opposition I.N.D.I.A bloc.
Some call it the third blow as the apex court in an interim order on Monday has also asked the government to act as per the definition of “forest” laid down in a 1996 judgement while hearing a petition against the amendments to the Forests Conservation Act, 1980.
While there was no immediate reaction from the BJP on the Chandigarh verdict, the unease in the ruling regime over recent Supreme Court decisions was evident when Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday appeared to mock the verdict on electoral bonds when he said the apex court would have found corruption even in ‘Kuchela’ gifting rice to Lord Krishna.
The latest setback for the BJP comes at a time the Opposition bloc is in political doldrums, as the parties are facing defections and yet to strike deals on seat sharing, including in Uttar Pradesh where Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has refused to join Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra till alliance is worked out.
Finding a silver lining in the latest verdict, top Opposition leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal among others were quick to target the BJP on alleged electoral malpractices.
Kejriwal also sought to read some lessons for the I.N.D.I.A from the judgement as he said that it showed that the BJP can be defeated if the parties work with “unity, planning and with strategy and hard work”. His comments came amid AAP and Congress holding negotiations to seal the Delhi deal.
The returning officer Anil Masih, a BJP functionary, declared eight votes of AAP councillors as invalid but his act of defacing ballot papers was caught on CCTV which clinched the case in Supreme Court. BJP president JP Nadda had on January 30 hailed the now-annulled BJP victory saying I.N.D.I.A fought their first electoral battle together but "still lost" to BJP showing that "neither their arithmetic is working nor their chemistry".
“Masih is just a ‘pawn’ in the BJP’s conspiracy to murder democracy, behind which is the ‘face’ of Modi,” Rahul posted on ‘X’ while Kharge said the Supreme Court has saved democracy from the “fangs of an autocratic BJP”, which has resorted to “dirty election manipulation”.
Kharge added, “the institutional sabotage...is only a tip of the iceberg in Modi-Shah’s devious conspiracy to trample democracy. All Indians must fight this onslaught on our Constitution, collectively. Never forget. Our democracy shall be at the crossroads in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections,”, a point Kejriwal also highlighted during his press interaction.