New Delhi, Oct 18 The BJP on Sunday slammed the Congress, asking it to stop pursuing “shoot and scoot” politics, after the main opposition party claimed that the Election Commission (EC) has decided to provide “readable” electoral rolls to political parties because the whole nation was on the streets against the “vote chors”.
BJP spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari said Rahul Gandhi is yet to file a formal complaint or submit an affidavit on his allegation made last year about the entry of “1 lakh bogus voters” in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly segment while pitching for searchable electoral rolls.
He was reacting after senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that over the past two years the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Congress have been “persistent, insistent and consistent” in demanding that the EC provide electoral rolls in a searchable format to all political parties.
“The demand was repeatedly refused by the ECI, which stopped providing searchable voter rolls in 2018 when the Congress found lakhs of bogus voters in Madhya Pradesh. The demand was denied for 8 years to enable Vote Chori,” the Congress general secretary in charge of communications alleged in a post on X,
Ramesh said the EC issued an order on October Oct 15 that the electoral rolls will be provided in searchable format to political parties for the Special Summary Revision (SSR), “resumed after a gap of two years in 17 states and UTs”.
“This is because the whole nation is on the streets against the Vote Chors,” he claimed, alleging, “Every time Vote Chori is caught, the Modi Govt adopts a new tactic: stopping readable voter rolls, fake voter additions, SIR. But not this time.”
Hitting back, BJP spokesperson Bhandari in a post on X asked the Congress to “stop the politics of shoot and scoot”.
Bhandari said Gandhi last year alleged the entry of “1 lakh bogus voters” in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly segment while pitching for a searchable electoral roll but he is yet to file a formal complaint or submit an affidavit in this connection.
“Mr Jairam Ramesh, your tweet (post on X) explains that you are underconfident with respect to your case in the Supreme Court,” the BJP spokesperson added.
On October 12, Gandhi and leaders of other opposition parties filed a petition in the Supreme Court over alleged large-scale voter deletions and irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
“He (Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar) simply has to go. But that alone will not be enough. The ECI itself along with its IT system has to be thoroughly revamped,” Ramesh said, adding that nothing can save the CEC.
(PTI News)
