Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday rejoiced at the Supreme Court’s rejection of pleas for a return to paper ballots in place of EVMs, portraying the verdict as a “tight slap” in the Opposition’s face.

Many Opposition leaders have over the past few years expressed suspicion about the tampering of EVMs on Modi’s watch and demanded a return to paper ballots and manual counting. However, the petitioners who lost in the apex court on Friday did not include any political party.

“They (the Opposition) were trying to betray democracy, but the Supreme Court has given them such a tight slap that they will not be able to look with their faces held high. This is an auspicious day for democracy. Every leader of the INDI alliance should apologise to the public,” Modi told a poll rally at Forbesganj in Araria, Bihar.

He asserted that the entire world appreciated India’s conduct of elections, and its use of technology in the exercise. He alleged that the RJD, Congress and other INDIA constituents had previously captured booths and looted ballot papers and ballot boxes.

“They did not allow the poor to come out of their houses to vote. They stopped the Dalit and backward brothers and sisters from voting by the power of sticks,” Modi said.

Modi said: “They could not tolerate the empowerment provided to the people by the EVMs and have been trying to do away with these. They committed the sin of sowing suspicion (about the EVMs) in the public’s minds.”

Modi repeated his accusation that the Congress was planning “dacoity” on OBCs’ share of reservations by designating Muslims as backward and bringing them under the quota.

He said the Congress had done this in Karnataka and “tomorrow it will be the turn of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes”.

He said this was against the Constitution but the “Congress and RJD have sunk so much in the swamp of appeasement that the Constitution, its spirit and the thoughts of Babasaheb Ambedkar do not matter to them”.

Modi said that then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had tried to do this in 2010 but the apex court had stopped the move.

At another rally, in Munger, Modi asserted he had worked for the welfare of everybody without asking about their religion, and termed this “true secularism”.

He repeated his charge that the Congress planned to impose an inheritance tax to snatch the hard-earned assets people set aside for their children. The Congress has denied this.

The Prime Minister was canvassing for BJP candidate Pradip Singh in Araria and Janata Dal United candidate Rajiv Ranjan Singh aka Lalan Singh in Munger.

Araria votes on May 7 and Munger on May 13. Chief minister Nitish Kumar did not attend the Forbesganj rally but was present at the Munger meeting.