‘He indirectly supported SIR’: Assam CM Himanta on Rahul’s ‘vote theft’ claim; cites ‘Bangladeshi names’ in voter rolls | India News
NEW DELHI: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had indirectly supported the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls through his recent remarks. Himanta said the revision exercise is necessary in Assam to remove the names of what he called “Bangladeshis” from the voter list.Speaking to reporters in New Delhi, Sarma referred to Gandhi’s comments on alleged irregularities in voter rolls in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura assembly constituency. Gandhi had claimed that over one lakh votes in the area were fake, duplicate, or bulk voters, with invalid addresses and misuse of Form 6.Sarma said, “Rahul Gandhi has himself given a certificate that SIR should be conducted. There should be a unique name along with an Aadhaar number. He (Gandhi) took some North Indian names. In Assam, we have names of ‘Bangladeshis’ in our voter rolls.”He added, “The same names are in Barpeta, Guwahati, Kerala and Delhi. It is a disease. That is why SIR is being done in Bihar.”Sarma also claimed that names of deceased persons are still present in the Assam electoral rolls. “That is why it (SIR) is required in Assam. After a long time, Rahul Gandhi has indirectly supported the Election Commission. His claim establishes that SIR is needed. I welcome it,” the Assam chief minister said.Earlier, Rahul Gandhi had addressed a press conference in New Delhi, where he alleged a “huge criminal fraud” in elections. He accused the BJP and the Election Commission of working together in what he called a ‘vote chori model” being used in several constituencies.Gandhi said the judiciary should step in as “the democracy that we love so much, does not exist anymore.” He claimed that in Mahadevapura, there was “vote chori” of 1,00,250 votes. According to him, this included 11,965 duplicate voters, 40,009 voters with fake or invalid addresses, 10,452 bulk voters using a single address, 4,132 voters with invalid photos, and 33,692 cases of misuse of Form 6 for new voters.
