At 79, veteran Congress leader Digvijaya Singh is set to embark on another long-distance journey with his 950 km Satya Sanatan Swabhiman Yatra aimed at raising questions over alleged irregularities in electoral rolls and the management of donations at religious institutions.
Singh said that 23 demands had been submitted to the commission, seeking to address concerns over the ECINet—a centralised, unified digital platform for all electoral services—and its alleged curtailment of the powers of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) by preventing them from independently correcting electoral rolls. We have raised objections to this, and we have placed around 23 demands before the Election Commission in this matter,” Singh said in a press conference on Thursday. “In Goa, the names of 97 voters had been deleted from the electoral rolls.
The second focus of the yatra is the alleged irregularities in electoral rolls and the functioning of its Election Commission’s ECINet software. “Our allegation is that the software developed by Mr Pathak, under the direction of Gyanesh Kumar, has completely taken away the powers of the EROs.
The yatra’s motto is “Yato Dharmastato Jayah”, which means “where there is dharma, there is victory”. Singh said that if people stood for truth, justice, honesty and the protection of the sanctity of religious places, they would be following the path of “dharma”. Referring to the yatra’s pamphlet outlining his allegations and demands, Singh said, “It contains allegations of donation theft, the theft of silver bricks, alleged scams involving land purchases near the Ram Temple, corruption in temple construction and the consecration ceremony, and scams that allegedly took place after the Ram Temple was built. The ERO said that these names had been wrongly deleted and needed to be added back. However, when the ERO accessed the portal, they did not have the authority to add the names through it,” he said.
Singh and Rai are expected to walk around 15 km a day over approximately 70 days. The upcoming yatra, however, combines a religious pilgrimage with a campaign on electoral accountability. It will begin at the Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain, pass through the Ram Raja Sarkar temple in Orchha and conclude at the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Organisers have said the march will not carry Congress flags or banners and will instead focus on public awareness.
