Chandigarh, May 14 (PTI) Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring on Thursday questioned the timing of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the state when it was headed for the assembly elections in less than 10 months.
Reacting to the announcement by the Election Commission of India on the matter, Warring said Punjab could have waited till the elections to assure the people that there was no hidden agenda behind the SIR in the state.
“Bihar and West Bengal elections have proved it beyond any doubt that the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre, with the help of a compliant ECI, can swing the electoral outcome in its favour with the fraudulent exercise of SIR of electoral rolls,” he alleged.
He noted that Punjab is headed for elections within less than 10 months, maybe earlier. “What is the urgency to hold this exercise here?” he said.
The ECI on Thursday rolled out phase 3 of the SIR of electoral rolls in 16 states including Punjab and three Union Territories involving 36.73 crore voters in a staggered manner beginning May 30.
The Ludhiana MP asked why the SIR exercise was not carried out in Punjab along with states like Uttar Pradesh and Goa, where it was held six months ago, as these two states are also scheduled to go for elections around the same time as Punjab.
He pointed out that in the case of Bengal, 27 lakh genuine voters were “disenfranchised”.
“Since there was not enough time, their appeals for inclusion in the voter list were not settled before the elections. They lost the right to vote,” he said, while cautioning against repeating the same process in Punjab.
“The ECI wants to repeat the same exercise in Punjab”, he said, adding, “We are confident of defeating their design.” He said the party has asked its rank and file to ensure that not a single genuine voter is denied the right to vote with this “fraudulent exercise of SIR”.
Warring also appealed to other political parties in the state to be wary and keep their political differences aside to ensure that Punjabi voters are not disenfranchised just ahead of elections because the BJP suspects them of not voting for it.
“Let us resolve not to allow the same thing to happen in Punjab as happened in Bihar and Bengal,” he remarked.
Former Punjab deputy chief minister and Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa too raised serious concerns over the SIR, saying that when less than 10 months remain for the elections in the state, launching such a process creates doubts about the fairness of the democratic system.
Randhawa asked the central government to clarify why the SIR exercise is being conducted late in Punjab when elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are scheduled around the same time.
He said the process should have been conducted simultaneously in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Randhawa said that if the Election Commission’s intention is genuinely to make voter lists transparent and error-free, the exercise could also have been conducted after the elections.
Implementing it just before the elections naturally creates suspicion among people that there may be a political motive behind it, he said in a statement.
Randhawa alleged that the BJP wants to use electoral processes according to its political interests under the influence of the central government.
He said in a sensitive and politically aware state like Punjab, such steps are already creating concern among the people.
Randhawa said that serious questions had also been raised regarding electoral rolls in Bihar and West Bengal, where complaints emerged about a large number of people allegedly being deprived of their voting rights.
He warned that any attempt in Punjab to remove genuine voters from the electoral rolls or prevent them from voting would not be tolerated. PTI CHS KSS KSS
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