Congress ‘very vigilant’ on SIR of electoral rolls: Venugopal

Bengaluru: AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal on Wednesday said the Congress has taken serious note of the SIR of electoral rolls underway in Karnataka and is “very vigilant” against alleged malpractices in the poll process.

Raising concerns over the “genuineness” of the deletion of names from electoral rolls in the state, he accused the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre of “manipulating elections” through the Election Commission.

Venugopal, who is in charge of the Congress’ organisation at the national level, along with AICC General Secretary in charge of Karnataka Randeep Singh Surjewala, CM D K Shivakumar and KPCC chief B K Hariprasad, held meetings with party leaders, office-bearers and DCC presidents here on Wednesday.

“We had a meeting regarding Special Intensive Revision in Karnataka. BJP is fighting against us using CBI, ED, IT, and now unfortunately the Election Commission of India has joined the list, too. The number of votes being deleted in Karnataka is somewhat surprising; around 23 per cent of total voters have been deleted from the voter list,” Venugopal said.

Speaking to reporters here, he said nobody would have any problem if the deletions were genuine. However, he said the actions of the Election Commission, especially over the last three to four years, had raised concerns that the deletions might not be genuine.

Alleging that about 50 lakh voters were deleted in West Bengal ahead of the elections there, the Congress leader said, “We understand the motive of the Election Commission behind carrying out this SIR exercise.”

“Our party today took a very serious note. I’m requesting the CM, who is here, as state government officers are deployed as BLOs—we don’t want any undue favouritism from the commission or officials or agencies. We want a free and fair play from the Election Commission of India. I think the Karnataka government will also ensure that those trying to cause mischief through SIR will pay the price,” he said.

One can win an election with the mandate of the people, but one cannot win with “vote chori”, he said. “But it is happening in this country these days. So Congress held an important meeting today. I don’t want to elaborate on what the party is going to do as it is an internal party matter, but the party is very vigilant to ensure that malpractices in the election process are not tolerated at both the state and national levels. All ministers and MLAs have been told to be actively involved in the exercise,” he said.

Venugopal alleged that the Election Commission had, on several occasions, not responded to complaints or requests for personal hearings regarding issues raised by opposition leaders.

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The Hans India