The Opposition parties in India are either naive or we must conclude that they may not be really sincere when they shout about ‘vote chori’. If they indeed believe in what they say about ‘vote chori’ and massive targeted deletions, why are they participating in these fake elections and sitting in legislatures which are elected on the basis of ‘vote chori’ and voters list deletions?

I’ve been arguing for a long time that in the light of serious questions on the fairness of due process in the elections, the entire opposition should boycott elections and resign their seats from all the legislatures: Lok Sabha and State Assemblies. This will deny the BJP legitimacy in the eyes of the people.

Let me say this about Mamata Banerjee’s stand. If she’s really serious about rejecting the declared mandate and refuses to resign, it means that she doesn’t recognise the to-be constituted Assembly – which only means she is considering the outgoing legislature still valid.

In that case, she should say all her party people who got elected in this illegitimate election would quit the house, and she should make them quit. Then her stance carries conviction. If you say, ‘my party’s winners are ok but your party’s winners are illegally elected’, what does that say about her conviction?

An argument with conviction would be to reject the results, indeed even if she won, since the deletion of 93 lakh votes and denial of voting rights to 27 lakh people vitiates the........

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