The Congress on Friday alleged that electoral democracy in India is facing the "gravest of threats" under the present government and called on the Supreme Court to take urgent steps to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process.
In a post on X, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal shared a letter sent by 23 opposition parties and an Independent MP to the Chief Justice of India (CJI), raising concerns over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the "partisan role" of the Election Commission of India (ECI), and other poll-related issues.
"Electoral democracy in our country faces the gravest of threats from the Modi-Shah regime," Venugopal said in his post while releasing a copy of the letter.
He said the letter, submitted on June 28, flagged issues relating to the "flawed SIR process", the "partisan role" of the Election Commission of India and other election-related concerns.
"It is the role of our judiciary to guard our democracy from the excesses of the executive - especially one which is hell-bent on destroying the Constitutional framework that gives us our democracy.
"In our democracy, the Supreme Court is entrusted with the onerous responsibility of ensuring injustice doesn't prevail. Therefore, it has a vital role to play in protecting the free and fair nature of elections, and also to make sure that they seen to be free and fair. Without this, injustice against 1.4 billion voters persists every single day," he said in his post.
"We are releasing this letter, in the interest of transparency, and in the hope that the Hon'ble Supreme Court will take the firm steps urgently required to restore the integrity and accoutability of and faith in the election process of crores of our people," Venugopal said.
(With inputs from PTI)