Plea To Stay Oath Ceremony For 136 MPs, Pending Bribery Charges, Reaches President Murmu

The Khatakhat Scheme of Congress Party, where Rahul Gandhi promised Rs 8500 per month to women voters, may turn out to be nemesis for the opposition party Members Of Parliament (MPs). A Delhi-based Supreme Court lawyer Vibhor Anand, who has levelled bribery charges against the Gandhi family members and the Congress Party, has now written to President Droupadi Murmu to stay the oath-taking ceremony of the opposition MPs. The President has summoned the Lower House (Lok Sabha) on June 24, 2024, whereby the newly elected MPs will be administered the oath.

In a letter to President Murmu said that the oath-taking ceremony of 99 MPs of the Congress and 37 MPs of the Samajwadi Party (SP) should be put on hold since a plea for their disqualification is pending with the President.

Earlier, during the week in which the election results were announced on June 4, Anand wrote to the President seeking a disqualification of all the 136 MPs of Congress and SP. Anand had alleged that the Congress Party had indulged in the promise of cash for vote scam. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's infamous "Khatakhat cash transfer" slogans and women queuing up outside the party offices of the Indian National Congress across many states in the country, "with guarantee cards" promising them Rs 1 lakh if voted to power, dominated the prime time news for several days preceding election results.

As per the lawyer, the Khatakhat Scheme and the distribution of guarantee cards by Congress amounted to "Bribing Voters." Congress committed an offence under section 123(1) of the Representation of People Act, 1951 in the recently concluded general elections, which amounts to gross corrupt practices with the sole intention of Bribing Voters, Anand told President Murmu in a letter. The President has sent the letter for legal opinion.

During the last few weeks of election campaigning, both Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka were seen peddling the "Khatakhat Scheme '' that promised to transfer Rs 8500 each month and Rs 1 lakh every year in the accounts of women voters, if they voted Congress to power. New reports said that the Congress had distributed 'guarantee cards' or promissory notes to several households promising Rs 1 lakh every year to the woman head of every poor family for voting them to power. In 2019, Rahul Gandhi had lost from his family bastion of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. But this time on the back of the khatakhat Scheme, Gandhi managed to win two seats this time: one from Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh and another in Wayanad in Kerala.

Elections in India are governed under the Representation of People (RP) Act, 1951. According to section 123 of the RP Act, which deals with corrupt practices during elections: "Bribery is any gift, offer or promise" by a candidate or his agent or by any other person with the consent of a candidate or his election agent of any gratification, to any person whomsoever, with the object, directly or indirectly of inducing a person to stand or not to stand as, or to withdraw or not to withdraw from being a candidate at an election, or an elector to vote or refrain from voting at an election, or as a reward to a person for having so stood or not stood, or for an elector for having voted or refrained from voting.

Simply put, Rahul Gandhi's promise of Rs 1 lakh to voters directly in their accounts for voting in Congress Party's favour and also distribution of guarantee cards to such effect amounts to "Bribery" under sections of Representation of People Act, 1951 that govern election laws in India.

"A bare reading of Section 123 of RP Act and the contents of the Congress Guarantee Card is enough to establish that the Indian National Congress and its leaders along with all its members resorted to gross corrupt practices to induce female voters by way of Bribery of Rs. 8500 per month/ Rs. 1 Lac Per Annum to every female voters. In View of the above mentioned facts and circumstances, it is crystal clear that the Indian National Congress Party and its leaders along with its members committed an offence under section 123(1) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951," Anand had told the President in his letter June 8.

"The current dire situation of the country where millions of woman feel cheated by the leaders and members of the Indian National Congress and Samajwadi Party who had given them a guarantee of being paid Rs. 8500 per month needs drastic measures from Her Excellency in order to restore faith of the people in the democratic set up of the country," Anand's latest plea to the President said.