NEW DELHI: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday reiterated the opposition’s demand for voting using ballot paper despite the party’s lacklustre performance in the Karnataka MLC elections, which were held using ballot papers.Reacting to the Karnataka MLC results, Kharge said the opposition would not give up its demand for ballot paper voting simply because BJP won the elections. He also challenged the BJP to dissolve Parliament and contest elections using ballot papers.“Ballot paper, still we ask. It doesn’t mean that we should leave because they are winning. Once upon a time they won only two Parliament seats. Sometimes it happens, that doesn’t mean that party has no hold,” Kharge said.“That ego should not be there in BJP that they have done very well. If that is the case, let them dissolve the Parliament and go on ballot paper,” he added.Kharge’s remarks came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a dig at Congress for “drawing a blank” in recent MLC elections. The grand old party had won zero seats till Wednesday night. The party, however, opened its account after retaining Nagpur Division Graduates’ constituency seat.“MLC elections in 28 seats across 4 big states – Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and Karnataka. Elections held using ballot papers. Guess how many seats Congress won?” PM Modi said in a post on X.BJP national president Nitin Nabin also targeted Congress, saying the party would continue to struggle for survival under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership. Addressing a gathering during the BJP’s ‘Loktantra Bachao, Arajakta Hatao’ march in Delhi, Nabin said PM Narendra Modi would return to the Red Fort after the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.Nabin also accused Congress of opposing the revision of electoral rolls because it was distressed by efforts to remove alleged infiltrators.“There are voters who have died but whose names remain on the electoral rolls. There are also people whose names appear in the voter lists at two places. There are crores of such voters whose names are registered more than once, while the whereabouts of many others cannot be traced.
This is what is called a ‘ghost voter list’,” he said.The remarks followed the BJP-JD(S) alliance’s sweep of all four Karnataka legislative council seats, despite Congress being in power in the state. The results also saw Congress lose its sitting Bengaluru Teachers’ constituency to the JD(S), while the BJP retained three seats.PM Modi’s reference to ballot papers comes amid the opposition’s repeated allegations of irregularities in electronic voting machines (EVMs) and demands for greater transparency in the electoral process.