AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi called the BJP a "formidable political opponent," noting their "24 hours a day" work ethic as he distanced himself from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's "vote theft" accusation.
However, Owaisi did urged opposition parties to be "vigilant" warning that BJP can do their work in a blink of an eye.
"I can't speak on behalf of Rahul Gandhi and his party. They are capable. I believe that if I have to defeat the BJP, the way the BJP fights elections, these people work 24 hours a day. Our job should be to keep an eye on their every move," Owaisi said in an interview with ANI. "This happened with the voter list in my constituency in 2009 or 2014. We went and wherever there were duplicate entries, we challenged them. You're competing with the BJP; it's a formidable political opponent. You blink, and these people will do their work; therefore, we must be vigilant. And we must check the voter list, check the names."
So far, Rahul Gandhi has done two press conferences as part of his "vote theft" expose.
At the August 7 press conference in Delhi, he cited electoral data for Mahadevapura, a part of the Bangalore Central parliamentary constituency. He claimed that the voter list contained more than 100,000 manipulated entries, including duplicate voters, invalid addresses, and bulk registrations of votes at a single location.
In the second press conference in September, he mounted a scathing attack on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing him of protecting those who were "destroying" Indian democracy by refusing to share technical details about the individuals behind an attempted voter deletion from the Aland Assembly Constituency in Karnataka.
Meanwhile, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has also targeted the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, saying that the exercise was conducted in "a hurry" and that verifying citizenship is the mandate of the Home Ministry.
Owaisi said that if those whose names were deleted don't check, "you'll see there'll be another uproar on polling day". He said AIMIM's Bihar unit chief, Akhtarul Iman, had moved the Supreme Court regarding the SIR.
Bihar will go to the polls in two phases on November 6 and 11, and votes will be counted on November 14. The Election Commission announced the poll dates after the completion of SIR.
Owaisi stated that 65 lakh names were removed in the draft electoral roll, and now the Election Commission has removed an additional 3.5 lakh voters.
He said Bihar is a large state with a vast rural population, and the Election Commission announced the SIR exercise only in June.
The Election Commission had published the final electoral roll for the Bihar assembly elections last month, following the completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The total number of electors in the final list stands at 7.42 crore, while there were 7.89 crore electors as of June 24 this year.
(With ANI inputs)
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
