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The BJP on Wednesday claimed irregularities in voter registration in a number of Opposition Lok Sabha seats — including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Rae Bareli, TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee’s Diamond Harbour and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s Kannauj — and accused these leaders of securing victory through “vote theft”.
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At a press conference in the capital, former Union minister Anurag Thakur presented an analysis of electoral rolls in these constituencies to make a range of allegations — duplicate votes, fake addresses, fake relatives, incorrect ages and large-scale voter additions.
He also claimed voter registration irregularities in the Lok Sabha seats of Wayanad (Priyanka Gandhi Vadra) and Mainpuri (Dimple Yadav), and the Tamil Nadu Assembly seat of Kolathur held by Chief Minister M K Stalin.
Thakur’s claims followed Rahul’s allegations of “vote chori” last week. On Thursday, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha cited data from the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to claim that over one lakh votes were “stolen” in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly segment through duplicate voters, fake and invalid addresses and single-address voters.
On Tuesday, Opposition leaders took out a protest march from Parliament over the issue of “vote theft” and special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar.
Thakur on Wednesday said the Opposition leaders he named should resign. He claimed that there were about 2.99 lakh “doubtful voters” registered in the Rae Bareli constituency. The BJP leader also claimed there were about 2.69 lakh “doubtful voters” in the Diamond Harbour seat, 93,499 in Wayanad, 2.51 lakh in Kannauj, 2.55 lakh in Mainpuri and 19,776 in Kolathur.
“My direct question is, Akhilesh ji, Rahul ji, Priyanka ji, when will you resign? And as far as the propaganda king is concerned, you all know this is not a new face. Every time, his work is the same — to spread fear and confusion. Before elections, to spread lies and rumours in the name of the Constitution, to run propaganda among the people, and after losing the elections, to quietly go on a foreign trip,” he said.
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Thakur said the Congress as well as the larger INDIA bloc were opposing the SIR exercise to “protect their infiltrator vote bank”.
He alleged that the Congress had laid the foundation of “electoral corruption” in the very first election of 1952 in which B R Ambedkar lost by 14,561 votes. He added that the Congress did the same in 1957 in the form of “booth capturing”. In 1967, he alleged, the Congress carried out “complete rigging” of the elections in Jammu and Kashmir and in 1988, in collusion with the National Conference, the Congress “carried out large-scale rigging.”
Meanwhile, the BJP launched a separate attack on senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi with the party’s National Information & Technology Department head Amit Malviya claiming that the former Congress president’s “tryst with India’s voters’ list is riddled with glaring violations of electoral law”.
He shared a purported copy of electoral rolls of the Gandhi family from 1980 which stated that her name was struck off due to her nationality. “Her name first appeared on the rolls in 1980 — three years before she became an Indian citizen and while she still held Italian citizenship…” he said.
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“Following an outcry in 1982, her name was deleted from the list — only to reappear in 1983. But even her reinstatement raised serious questions… The qualifying date for registration was January 1, 1983 — yet she was granted Indian citizenship only on April 30, 1983…” he alleged.
Responding to Malviya’s allegation, Congress MP Sukhdeo Bhagat said: “In 1980, it was pointed out that Sonia Gandhi ji’s name shouldn’t be in the electoral roll. It was an error by the ECI. The name was withdrawn respectfully, and reinstated in 1983. We are saying that when the ECI makes an error, we are fixing responsibility, and not running away.”
“Now, let’s talk about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has been contesting from Varanasi for three times now. He has to be in the electoral roll there. Then, how did the PM cast his vote in Sabarmati in 2022,” said Bhagat.
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