After vote chori, BJP now engaged in satta chori, says Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge

After “vote chori”, the BJP is now engaged in satta chori [government theft] by bringing Bills to “topple Opposition governments within 30 days by using arrest as a weapon, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said on Sunday (24 August, 2025).

Mr. Kharge made the remarks in his opening statement at the meeting with newly appointed District Congress Committees (DCC) presidents of Haryana and Madhya Pradesh at the Indira Bhawan, the party headquarters in New Delhi.

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, who has a one-day break in his ongoing Vote Adhikar Yatra in Bihar, also addressed the gathering in the evening. “An important step in preparing our Congress organisation to fight for the people’s voice with renewed strength,” Mr. Gandhi wrote in a Facebook post.

General secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal, who also addressed the meeting, in a X post added, “After this session, DCC presidents will also attend a 10-day rigorous training camp to prepare them for their crucial responsibilities”.

In his opening remarks, the Congress leader spoke about the three Bills which have now been referred to a Joint Committee of Parliament after Home Minister Amit Shah introduced it in the Lok Sabha last Wednesday. Mr. Kharge claimed that the Bills take away the right of citizens to form or remove their elected government. This power will now go to institutions like the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), he added.

‘Arrest as a weapon’

“It is like running a bulldozer on democracy,” Mr. Kharge asserted, adding, “With these Bills, the BJP can topple Opposition governments within 30 days, it can destabilise democracy by using arrest as a weapon”.

The three Bills – The Government of Union Territories (Amendment) Bill 2025; the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill 2025; and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill 2025 – have proposed that if the Prime Minister, Union Ministers or Chief Ministers are arrested and detained in custody for 30 consecutive days for offences that attract a jail term of at least five years, they will lose their jobs on the 31st day.

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Referring to the cases against Opposition leaders, the Congress Chief said out of 193 ED cases, conviction has happened only in two cases. “Many Chief Ministers and Ministers were arrested and kept in jail for months. But now the CBI is saying that they do not have any evidence. [Prime Minister Narendra] Modiji talks big about corruption today. But he has included all those whom he used to call corrupt in the party and has even made them Ministers,” Mr. Kharge said.

Speaking about the recently concluded Monsoon Session, the Congress chief claimed that the Opposition wanted Parliament to function and important issues of the public to be discussed but the BJP government did not want to focus on key matters like Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar and “vote chori”.

On the lookout

“The BJP will continue to cut the votes of our people with schemes like SIR. The biggest responsibility of the district president is that we have to be careful for the entire five years. We have to keep intensively checking our voter list so that if BJP people or Booth Level Officers (BLOs) cut the names of our people, we can catch them immediately,” Mr. Kharge said.

The Congress chief cautioned the DCC chiefs to take special care in forming booth and mandal-level committees and ensure that the people on these panels are loyal to the party and do not waver from the ideology of the Congress.

“The district president is the strongest link in the Congress organisation. If the government has to be elected in the State, he plays an important role in getting the candidate elected in the Legislative Assemblies. If the government has to be formed in the country, your support is needed to win the Lok Sabha,” he said.