'Rahul Gandhi wants to save his ghuspaithiye voters': BJP flips the debate on SIR

Anurag Thakur

The BJP on Wednesday hit back at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his allegations against the Election Commission, accusing him of spreading falsehoods to shield "ghuspaithiye voters" and undermine the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.

"Rahul Gandhi wants to save his ghuspaithiye voters. They spread rumours and protect ghuspaithiye. SIR is to protect voting rights of actual voters of India," BJP MP Anurag Thakur said at a press conference.

Asserting that the Election Commission was not performing its duty of enforcing the principle of “one man, one vote”, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Tuesday hinted at exposing more alleged irregularities in the voters’ list. Speaking with reporters in the Parliament House complex, Mr. Gandhi said the Congress was engaged in protecting the Constitution and would continue to do so.

The Election Commission has hit back hard at Rahul Gandhi's allegations, demanding he state his claims in a signed affidavit and provide proof. The Congress leader and others from the INDIA opposition bloc held a vociferous protest Monday afternoon to pressure the poll panel to release machine-readable voter lists rather than posting scanned photographs of the voter list, which makes checking it for errors almost impossible.

The opposition has alleged widespread voter fraud during the Lok Sabha election in Karnataka in April-May last year and the Maharashtra Assembly election in October. In both cases, they have has claimed, lakhs of illegally cast votes - all allegedly favouring the BJP - were cast and counted. Last week Gandhi fired up two PowerPoint presentations at INDIA bloc meetings.