Jaipur, Oct 30 Rajasthan BJP president Madan Rathore has defended the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, saying the exercise was conducted 10 times under Congress governments and accusing the opposition party of misleading people about voter deletions.
In a statement issued on Friday, Rathore said the SIR was neither a new exercise nor a threat to democracy, as alleged by the Congress.
He accused the Congress of spreading misinformation and attempting to create unrest over the electoral roll revision.
Targeting former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, Rathore said the Congress had no moral ground to lecture others on democracy, citing the Emergency imposed by former prime minister Indira Gandhi.
He said newspapers faced restrictions, citizens’ rights were suspended and opposition leaders were jailed during the Emergency.
Rejecting the Congress’ allegations regarding the deletion of 13 crore voters, Rathore claimed that the exercise had identified 2.80 crore deceased voters, 6.3 crore who had shifted residence, one crore with multiple registrations and three crore whose whereabouts were unknown.
He maintained that these voters had been identified during the verification process and that their names had not necessarily been deleted.
Rathore said the BJP had launched a campaign to counter what he described as the Congress’ misleading narrative on democracy.
(PTI News)
