New Delhi, Oct 6 (IANS): Amid a protest by INDIA bloc against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday accused the Congress of lying, citing that earlier the party had itself sought the removal of “duplicate voters”.
Addressing a press conference, BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi said: “Those who have been marred with continuous electoral defeats…the first family of the primary opposition party, Gandhi family of the Congress, who have been running a monarchy under the garb of democracy…today attempted to break into the Akashwani Bhavan.”
Questioning the Congress, he asked: “Whether or not Rahul Gandhi had himself raised the issue of voter duplication at various times in the past?”
Citing that several senior leaders of the Congress have also raised the concerns of voter duplication, he said: “I want to ask them whether the Congress leaders were speaking the truth then or are they saying the truth now…the reality is they had been lying then and are lying now as well.”
“Earlier Congress leaders asked for removal of duplicate voters, when it is being done now, they are blaming the process,” he added.
Referring to Congress’ claims that 13 crore voters have been “deliberately deleted”, the BJP MP said: “Out of the 13 crore, more than 2 crore are dead voters and one crore are duplicates. How can these dead and duplicate voters be brought into the mainstream?”
Asserting that probe has also been conducted in distribution of ration cards and MNREGA cards, in order to ensure that only the real beneficiaries are able to avail the service, he said: “Irregularities were found there as well. Those who had illegally availed those schemes are now attempting to eat up the democracy through ‘dead and duplicate’ voters.”
“Without any probe, whom is the Congress wanting to benefit by providing voting rights to Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicates?” Trivedi asked.
The BJP leader stated that before the last SIR in 2003, the Congress was already out of power in states accounting for 228 Lok Sabha seats. “The Congress itself has to be blamed for its condition, years before the BJP came to power,” he remarked.
Moreover, he questioned whether Rahul Gandhi has ever stayed at a stretch for even one-two weeks while campaigning for Assembly elections in any state, saying: “A laidback person is now making allegations of ‘vote chori’.”
Taking a jibe at the Congress with regard to the bypolls being conducted on Tuesday, Trivedi said: “Since you are contesting the polls, have you got the voter lists checked?…you will also get time to check CCTV footages. So, have you put everything in place or do you want to do theatrics on the streets after a year?”
Accusing the Congress of “unable to digest the real democracy”, he said: “That is why they have been making baseless allegations against every constitutional establishment.”
