New Delhi: Hitting back at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his ‘vote chori (theft)’ allegations, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar Sunday called the usage of such words an “insult to the Constitution”.
Kumar was addressing a press conference along with Election Commissioners Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr Vivek Joshi, at the National Media Centre in New Delhi.
Earlier this month, Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition Gandhi had alleged during a press conference that ECI was colluding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to “steal” elections. Since then, the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of several states have sought a formal oath from Gandhi on his claims. While the ECI was holding its press meet, the Congress, RJD and allies held a ‘Voter Adhikaar Rally’ in Bihar against the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll in poll-bound Bihar.
Justifying this stance, without expressly naming Gandhi, Kumar now said, “PPTs are made, and ECI’s data is analysed wrongly and through it, it is said that because there is such a name in the electoral roll and elections didn’t happen correctly—electoral rolls and elections are two separate issues…Laws and rules for both are separate.”
He called it a “matter of concern” that “an attempt is being made to spread confusion by ignoring the ground reality”.
“If the infirmities in electoral rolls are not being highlighted within the prescribed timeframe, or election petition isn’t filed in the high court within 45 days of voters selecting their representatives, and then wrong words like ‘vote chori’ are used to mislead the citizens, then isn’t this an insult to the Constitution?” Kumar asked.
He asserted that several voters were being accused of voting at multiple places. “Neither ECI nor the voter is afraid of such false accusations. When the voters of this country are being targeted by placing a gun on the ECI’s shoulders, we want to clarify that ECI stands fearless, like a rock, without any bias, with all voters from all classes and religions, whether they are poor, rich, old, women, or young.”
Responding to questions on why Gandhi’s allegations cannot be looked into without an oath from him, Kumar clarified, “ECI cannot work on such serious allegations without an oath,” and asserted that there has been no proof or evidence forthcoming on these allegations.
“Give an oath, or apologise to the nation. There is no third option. If we don’t get an affidavit within seven days, this would mean that all these allegations are baseless and the person who is saying our voters are fraud, should apologise,” he announced, asking if the voters were being called “liars”.
The CEC also said ECI has already complied with the Supreme Court’s directive made on Thursday, to publish the list of 65 lakh names deleted from the draft electoral roll published by it on 1 August pursuant to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise being undertaken by it in Bihar.
The EC complied with the directive within 56 hours, and now deleted voters can be looked up on the websites of the district election officers, booth-wise, he said.
‘Non-Indians asked for documents’
As for people alleged to be of other nationalities through the SIR exercise, Kumar said people have been asked for documents to establish their identity. “These documents will be thoroughly examined till 30 September. If some people are found to not be from our country, they will be found through a thorough investigation and they won’t get a vote,” he said.
Kumar also clarified other accusations in relation to electoral rolls.
He cited voter privacy for not sharing CCTV footage from polling booths, asking, “Should anybody’s CCTV footage, including your mothers, daughters, daughters-in-law be made public?”
Kumar questioned voter information and photos being made public as well, but rejected claims of being biased, saying, “As per the law, every political party is born after registering with the ECI. So how can the ECI be biased against any such political parties? For ECI, there is no Opposition, no favorites, all are equal.”
Kumar also confirmed that several people have ‘0’ as their house numbers. “Because the panchayat, the municipality where they live, they don’t have a number for it. There are unauthorised colonies in cities, they don’t have a number for it. So what address should they fill in their forms? ECI orders say that such people need to be given a notional number, and when you fill it in the computer, it comes as 0,” he said.
Addresses, he argued, weren’t as important as citizenship, 18 years of age, and their proximity to the polling booth, in order to be a voter.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Also Read: Rahul’s ‘vote chori’ attack on EC is a political dead-end. He still has a point
Hi Apoorva! What does the “constitutional expert” PDT Achary think about this?
I absolutely love it when Apoorva, usually reserved, lets the “Rahul Gandhi fangirl” inside her take over with appropriate assistance from the “constitutional expert” PDT Achary.