A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remark that the Supreme Court’s verdict on VVPAT slips was a “tight slap” on the Opposition, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh reminded the PM of the “spanking” by the SC in the electoral bonds case.

The Supreme Court rejected pleas seeking complete cross-verification of votes cast using EVMs with a VVPAT and said “blindly distrusting” any aspect of the system can breed unwarranted scepticism.

“When the Congress, the RJD and other INDI Alliance parties were in power, the poor, backwards, and Dalits used to be deprived of their votes through booth capture. With the introduction of Electronic Voting Machines, they are no longer able to play their old game. Hence, they committed the sin of creating distrust against EVMs,” the PM alleged in Araria after the Supreme Court’s verdict.

Also Read: ‘Tight slap on Opposition INDIA bloc’: PM Modi hails Supreme Court’s verdict on EVMs

“But today, the highest court of the land delivered a verdict … which comes as a tight slap to these parties,” he added.

Reacting to PM’s statement, in a post on X, Ramesh said, “The Indian National Congress was not a party, directly or indirectly, to the petition on VVPATs which has been rejected by the Supreme Court today.”

Further commenting on his “tight slap” remark, the Congress leader said, “A few weeks ago the Supreme Court had given the PM a tighter slap – in fact, a spanking – by declaring the corruption-ridden electoral bonds scheme not just illegal but also unconstitutional.”

However, he asserted that the Congress will continue with its political campaign on greater use of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail to increase public trust in the electoral process.

Also Read: SC rejects pleas seeking 100 per cent verification of EVM votes with VVPAT slips

Ramesh also said the Prime Minister should apologise to the nation for amassing Rs 8,200 crore over the last five years through four primary channels of corruption – “Chanda Do, Dhanda Lo; Theka Lo, Ghoos do; Hafta Vasooli, and Farzi Companies”.

Ramesh had made a similar allegation earlier as well while flagging a media report that claimed the BJP received 75 per cent of the Rs 582 crore that was donated by 33 loss-making firms through electoral bonds.

In February, a five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court struck down the electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous donations to political parties, calling it “unconstitutional”.