Hyderabad: Telangana BJP president N Ramchander Rao accused the Congress of spreading a “false narrative” over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, alleging that Rahul Gandhi was making baseless claims of “vote theft” to discredit Election Commission and other constitutional institutions. He called upon BJP workers, professionals, lawyers and intellectuals to counter what he described as a misinformation campaign and explain the importance of maintaining accurate electoral rolls.
Addressing an extended meeting of party leaders, cell conveners, spokespersons, legal experts and media panellists at the BJP state office on Saturday, Ramchander Rao said the SIR process was conducted transparently and in accordance with constitutional provisions and Supreme Court guidelines.
Citing figures presented at the meeting, he claimed that of the country’s 95 crore registered voters, around 82 crore had submitted enumeration forms, while 13 crore cases fell under the absent, shifted, deceased and doubtful/duplicate categories. He said 2.8 crore deceased voters and one crore duplicate entries had been identified. He also claimed that only 29 lakh entries had been proposed for deletion through Form 7 and that more than two crore voters had successfully registered online through Form 6.
This is nothing but an attempt to mislead the public,” the BJP state president said. The BJP state president reiterated his challenge to Revanth Reddy and Rahul Gandhi to identify voters whose names had been unlawfully deleted, insisting that allegations of vote theft should be backed by verifiable evidence. He alleged that Rahul Gandhi had made contradictory statements after meeting President Droupadi Murmu. “Rahul Gandhi had acknowledged that the President sought evidence for the allegations but subsequently claimed that she had accepted that vote theft had taken place.