Marri Sashidhar Reddy slams Congress over ‘vote theft’ allegations

Hyderabad: Former minister Marri Sashidhar Reddy has strongly criticized the Congress party’s ongoing campaign, alleging “vote theft,” dismissing it as a misleading political slogan aimed at deceiving the public.

On Tuesday, in a detailed statement, Reddy accused Congress leaders of manufacturing false narratives around electoral integrity, particularly in the context of the upcoming Bihar elections and recent Lok Sabha polls.

Sashidhar Reddy recalled that during the 2024 general elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi energized the BJP cadre with the slogan “Char Sau Paar,” while Congress leaders, led by Rahul Gandhi, launched a counter-campaign claiming that reservations would be removed and the Constitution was under threat. He argued that this narrative was used to emotionally manipulate voters and divert attention from real electoral issues.

Refuting allegations of large-scale voter deletions in Bihar, Reddy cited official data showing 7.89 crore registered voters and 77,895 polling stations. He noted that the Congress’s claim of 65 lakh missing votes amounts to less than 1% of the total electorate, and such revisions are routine during electoral roll updates. He emphasized that the Election Commission has provided a one-month window for claims and objections, with over 4.3 lakh Form-6 applications already submitted.

Turning to Telangana, Sashidhar Reddy highlighted longstanding discrepancies in the voter rolls. In 2018, he said, nearly 68 lakh errors were identified, including 30 lakh duplicate votes, 12 lakh cross-constituency duplicates, and 18 lakh entries linked to Andhra Pradesh. He alleged that hundreds of voters were registered in single households and that names were entered without proper address verification.