E-Paper
Govt defends revision of electoral rolls in RS, Oppn MPs push back
Union minister JP Nadda defends the Election Commission's credibility amid Congress's accusations of manipulation, while the Opposition claims government misuse.
New Delhi No one questioned the credibility of the Election Commission of India (ECI) during the Congress regime, Union minister JP Nadda asked on Tuesday as he accused the Opposition party of misleading the country by spreading “misconception” about the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls after losing elections. The Opposition, however, accused the government of misusing the exercise to divide people and deflect them from its failures.
“For years, the responsibility of overseeing ECI functioning and work rested with a party, and that party stayed in power for a long time… it wasn’t with a party but with one family, and no questions were raised about the Election Commission’s credibility,” Nadda said, while participating in a discussion on the concluding day of SIR debate in the Rajya Sabha. He added that electoral reforms are a continuous process aimed at strengthening democracy and that the ECI operates independently under the Constitution.
“In the past four months, an attempt has been made to create an atmosphere in the country regarding SIR... as if some rigging is taking place...The election results (of Bihar) that have come in must surely trouble you (the Congress). You are applying the medicine somewhere else, but the disease is somewhere else. You will have to find your own disease,” he said.
He added: “Merely to calm your own cadres, spreading this misconception that we are losing elections because the ECI is indulging in mischief...”
Referring to home minister Amit Shah’s remark in the Lok Sabha that the NDA government’s policies is to “detect, delete, deport”, Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’ Brien said: “The actual D’s are not ‘Detect, delete, deport’, [they are] ‘Divide, distract, deflect’.”
He accused the government of dividing people and “polarise the electorate on the basis of religion and language”.
“You speak Bengali in some other states, you are targeted as being Bangladeshis. That’s a divide,” O’ Brien noted.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi accused the central government of undermining constitutional principles, and criticised the ECI by maintaining a “silence” on these issues.
