Ranchi, Aug 12 (PTI) Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of conspiring to manipulate votes through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar.
Yadav was in Jharkhand to pay tribute to former chief minister Shibu Soren, who died on August 4, at his ancestral village Nemra in Ramgarh district.
“The BJP’s biggest job is to conspire and plot when they lack answers to basic questions. When they realised the people of Bihar are against them, they conspired to manipulate votes on a large scale through SIR,” Yadav told reporters after arriving at Ranchi’s Birsa Munda Airport.
He said that if the SIR was genuinely needed, it could have been conducted a year earlier.
The assembly elections in Bihar are due this year.
“The BJP used to seize people’s rights earlier. Now they are manipulating votes. They also want to snatch away the right to vote,” Yadav alleged.
The SP chief also wondered why the EC sought an affidavit from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to support his allegation of “vote theft”.
Yadav said, “About two years ago, the Samajwadi Party reported that names of 18,000 voters were deleted in 2019 (Lok Sabha polls). When the 2022 (UP assembly) elections took place, the names of those voters remained deleted. We provided evidence with an affidavit and lodged a complaint, but no action has been taken against any official till date.
Yadav went to Nemra village by car to pay homage to Shibu Soren, the co-founder of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).
“Shibu Soren was a leader deeply connected to ‘Jal, Jungle, Jamin’ (water, forest, and land). He dedicated his entire life to the upliftment of tribal, oppressed, and deprived communities,” the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said.
Chief Minister Hemant Soren has inherited not only his father Shibu Soren’s ideology but also the experience of his long and struggling life, Yadav said.
“I hope Hemant Soren will carry forward his legacy and work to make the citizens of this state prosperous,” the SP president added.
At Nemra, Yadav offered floral tributes to a portrait of Shibu Soren, a towering figure in the state’s tribal movement, and met Hemant Soren and his mother Roopi Soren.
“In this hour of grief, the people of entire Jharkhand stand with you. Your strength will empower Chief Minister Hemant Soren,” Yadav told her.
Speaking to reporters at Nemra, he said the life of Shibu Soren was full of struggle.
“He fought for the rights of his people, tribal brothers and sisters and issues of the community for his entire life. He saw political ups and downs, but did not get disappointed. He left behind him a political lineage to his son Hemant Soren. Now it is the responsibility of Chief Minister Hemant Soren to take it forward,” the SP leader said.
While leaving for Lucknow, Yadav also spoke to the reporters who questioned him about Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla admitting a notice for the removal of High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma and setting up a committee to probe charges against him.
“The big question is, this proposal came to the Rajya Sabha earlier, and we have seen what happened. The person who was sitting on the highest chair, we don’t know his whereabouts now,” he said without naming former Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar who resigned suddenly last month citing ill health..
Justice Varma was repatriated from the Delhi High Court to the Allahabad High Court after burnt wads of currency notes were found at his official residence here on March 14. PTI SAN NN
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