BJP supporters should understand how party is winning elections through 'theft': Akhilesh Yadav
Lucknow (PTI): The returning officer who conducted the Chandigarh mayoral polls "accepting the crime of rigging" the elections shows how hungry the BJP is for power, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Monday after the Supreme Court came down heavily on the officer for allegedly defacing ballot papers.
BJP supporters should understand how the party is winning every election through "theft and scams". Neither the country nor the future of their own children is safe in the hands of such people, Yadav said in a post on X in Hindi.
Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court posed searching questions to Returning Officer Anil Masih and said that putting a mark on ballot papers cannot be allowed in an electoral democracy.
During the hearing, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud voiced displeasure over the way the January 30 mayoral polls were held and told Masih that he could be prosecuted in case of any falsehood.
"The (pro-)BJP presiding officer's accepting the crime of rigging the Chandigarh mayor elections shows how hungry the BJP is for power. On legal and constitutional grounds, the BJP should apologise to the entire country and give up power everywhere," Yadav said.
BJP supporters should hang their heads their heads for this "shameful act" of openly killing democracy, he said.
"They should understand how the BJP is winning every election through theft and scams. Neither the country nor... the future of their children is safe in the hands of such people," he added.
The SP chief said those officers who commit "criminal acts" under pressure from the government should also learn a lesson from this incident. This will ruin their lives and that of their families because such crimes are no less than treason and they will face strict punishment.
Voicing its deep concern over "horse-trading", the Supreme Court said it will examine on Tuesday the ballot papers of the Chandigarh mayoral polls and the video recording of the counting.
It also said that instead of ordering fresh polls, it may consider declaration of results on the basis of votes already cast.
The BJP had swept the Chandigarh mayoral polls, in a setback to the Congress-AAP alliance that alleged tampering with ballot papers by the presiding officer.
The BJP's Manoj Sonkar had defeated the AAP's Kuldeep Kumar for the mayor's post, polling 16 votes against his rival's 12. Eight votes were declared invalid.
Kumar had later moved the Supreme Court.
Sonkar, however, resigned on Sunday while three AAP councillors defected to the BJP.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
