‘Can crowds at CP mortgage India’: JP Nadda attacks Congress over poll claims (Lead)

Ahmedabad, Oct 27 (SocialNews.XYZ) Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda on Tuesday accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of failing to formally substantiate his allegations of irregularities in the electoral rolls in Karnataka, saying he had neither submitted an affidavit nor filed a complaint with the Election Commission.

Addressing the BJP's ‘Save Democracy, Remove Anarchy’ rally in Ahmedabad, Nadda said Gandhi had alleged that around one lakh votes were invalid in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment but had not followed the poll body's request to provide a formal complaint and supporting affidavit so that the allegations could be investigated.

“If the Election Commission asked him to submit an affidavit and file a complaint so that it could identify and investigate the matter, why has he not approached the Commission? Can a thousand people gathered at Connaught Place mortgage the country?” Nadda asked, accusing the Congress of making allegations against the poll body without pursuing the prescribed process.

The minister's remarks came amid the Opposition's criticism of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. He defended the exercise, saying it involved extensive verification rather than arbitrary deletion of votes.

According to Nadda, around 10.24 lakh Booth Level Officers (BLOs) conducted door-to-door verification, while approximately 12.62 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs), including those representing Opposition parties, monitored the process.

"The exercise covered a voter base of around 95 crore," he said.

Nadda rejected the Opposition's claim that approximately 13 crore votes had been deleted, arguing that the figure represented entries identified for verification because voters were absent from their registered addresses, had shifted, were deceased or appeared more than once.

"Around three crore entries related to voters who could not be found at their registered addresses, 6.3 crore concerned people who had shifted, approximately one crore were duplicate entries and another 2.8 crore related to deceased voters," he said.

The minister also argued that the SIR was not a new exercise, saying it had been conducted 12 times, including 10 times under Congress governments and twice under BJP governments.

Citing the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Nadda referred to Mahant Haridas Udasin, whose polling station was set up deep inside Gujarat's Gir forest.

"10 Election Commission personnel walked around 10 kilometres through the forest to allow the religious figure to cast his vote," he said, describing the incident as an example of the poll body's efforts to facilitate voting.

Nadda also cited Bihar, where he said the electorate declined from around 7.89 crore to 7.42 crore following the revision, while turnout reached 66 per cent. The National Democratic Alliance subsequently won 202 of the state's 243 Assembly seats.

He alleged that electoral rolls had previously included names of illegal migrants and cited increases in voter numbers in several West Bengal districts bordering Bangladesh as grounds for scrutiny.

The minister said identifying absent, shifted, deceased and duplicate voters was necessary to maintain accurate electoral rolls.

He accused the Congress of questioning electronic voting machines when it lost elections and demanding ballot papers on other occasions.

Nadda also criticised the Opposition for raising allegations against constitutional institutions and said electoral outcomes should be determined by genuine voters rather than by people whose eligibility to vote was in question.

Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi and other BJP leaders attended the rally.

Source: IANS