'Vote Adhikar Rally': Congress Set For Its Mega Show In Bengaluru

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Opposition Leader in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi will hold the party's 'Vote adhikar rally' at Bengaluru's Freedom Park on Friday, which is being organised in protest against the alleged "vote theft".

The event, titled "Our Vote, Our Right, Our Struggle," will be held at 10:30 am at Freedom Park, where the Congress will demonstrate its strength for the cause. Through this rally, Congress has decided to use Karnataka as a launch pad for a movement against alleged electoral fraud.

The party has alleged electoral fraud during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka based on its study of the Mahadevapura assembly segment. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President and Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretaries K C Venugopal, Randeep Singh Surjewala, KPCC Working Presidents, Ministers, as well as party leaders and workers will participate in the protest.

The party organised a preparatory meeting for the rally on Wednesday. CM Siddaramaiah, his deputy Shivakumar, Congress general secretary and Karnataka in charge Surjewala, host of party leaders and ministers participated in the meeting. The Party has taken the voting pattern and voter list in the Mahadevapura assembly segment as the sample to prove its point. In the whole Lok Sabha seat, the Congress got 6,26,208 votes while the BJP got 6,58,915, with a winning margin of 32,707.

Rahul Gandhi on Thursday claimed that while it won six out of seven segments, it lost in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment in which it was defeated by over 1,14,000 votes. The protest is happening at a time when the crucial Bihar assembly polls are round the corner.

In view of the event, Bengaluru Traffic Police has issued a travel advisory, imposing restrictions on MG Road, Cubbon Road and Old Airport Road. Vehicular movement has been restricted in Chalukya Road, Shantala Junction and adjacent areas. The Traffic Police have also imposed parking restrictions in many areas of the city.