New Delhi, Feb 2 (PTI) Senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh on Monday said a large number of voters’ names were being struck out during the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in various states and termed the entire exercise a “scam”.
Replying to a motion of thanks on President Droupadi Murmu’s address to the joint sitting of Parliament, he slammed the ruling dispensation on a host of issues and accused it of indulging in a politics of hate and working against the welfare of people from backward classes.
Singh said “they” are striking out names of crores of voters in the name of SIR.
He claimed that nearly 4.5 crore voters were missing from a list prepared after SIR in Uttar Pradesh. The final electoral roll for the state, after the SIR, is yet to be published.
“This (SIR) is a huge fraud,” said Singh, the Aam Aadmi Party’s Rajya Sabha member from Delhi.
He said SIR notices were being sent to the family members of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and to former Navy personnel.
“This isn’t SIR. This is an election scam,” he said.
On foreign policy, Singh questioned the government’s silence over the killing of Hindus in Bangladesh.
“They are not coming forward and giving any clarification,” he said.
The AAP leader also mentioned a reference to Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) in investigative files related to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and sought the government’s clarification on it.
“An explanation should be given if there is any allegation,” he said.
His remarks drew quick opposition from the treasury benches.
Senior BJP leader Sudhanshu Trivedi said mentioning a perverted convicted criminal in Parliament is a symbol of a deranged mentality.
“It is very condemnable to say this (referring to Epstein files and claiming reference to PM) and it is a symbol of distorted mentality,” he said.
Dinesh Sharma, who was in the Chair, asked the AAP leader to not mention anything that is not based on facts.
The Ministry of External Affairs had on Saturday strongly rejected a reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Epstein files, describing it as “little more than trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal” that deserves to be dismissed with “utmost contempt”.
Citing a few incidents including last year’s violence in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly, Singh accused the government of playing the politics of hate.
He said the ideology, which considered father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi as a priest of non-violence, was being snatched away.
Singh suggested that the politics of hatred must be ended and asked all to “kill that ideology that assassinated Gandhi”.
He also criticised the government over the University Grant Commission’s equity regulations, on preventing caste-based discrimination on campuses. The Supreme Court recently stayed it saying the framework is “prima facie vague” and may end up dividing society with a “dangerous impact”.
“You created an atmosphere of conflict in the entire country,” the AAP leader said, accusing the government of being anti-dalit.
Singh said even the BJP’s ideological fountainhead Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) never had a dalit as its chief in its past 100 years of existence.
“You have ended reservation in universities within this country… more than 80 per cent of the posts of Professors and Assistant Professors, meant to be filled with those from dalits, backwards, tribals, in the universities are vacant. How are you a well-wisher of dalits, backward or tribals?” asked the APP leader.
He said there are 45 central universities, of which 38 have Vice Chancellors (VCs) from upper caste. Only seven such universities have VCs from dalits, backward classes and tribals, Singh said.
“This means dalits, backwards and tribals are not worthy of becoming VC? This is your mentality,” he added. PTI AKV TRB
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