Rahul's charge supports need for SIR, Gandhi family has history of poll irregularities: BJP

New Delhi, Aug 14 (PTI) The BJP said on Thursday that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has ended up supporting the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls with his allegations of irregularities in the voters' list.

At a BJP presser, Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat accused the Gandhi family of tampering with the electoral process by allegedly resorting to bribery, coercion and even destroying ballots, which were believed to be cast against Congress candidates, for generations in its "greed" for power.

He questioned the silence of the opposition party and the Gandhi family over the BJP's charge that its former president Sonia Gandhi was registered as a voter three years before she was granted Indian citizenship in 1983. This silence itself raises questions, he added.

"I ask the Congress again as to how it influenced the voters' list and made her a voter before she became a citizen. It certainly amounted to challenging the Indian sovereignty and gave a go-by to the constitutional process," he said.

Asked about Rahul Gandhi's press conference in which he made a presentation alleging large-scale irregularities in the voters' roll of an assembly constituency in Karnataka during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Shekhawat said the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha has only reinforced the need for the SIR.

Such irregularities must be probed, but when it is done, Gandhi sheds crocodile tears and opposes it, the BJP leader said, charging him with double standards.

"He (Gandhi) has spoken in support of the SIR and reinforced the need for it with his statement," Shekhawat claimed.

He accused the Congress leader of having a history of creating false narratives, be it surgical strikes or the manufacturing of Covid vaccines in India, strengthening anti-India forces at times of national pride and the need for unity.

People have repeatedly responded to his false narratives with votes, and he is now at the margins of politics, Shekhawat said.

He cited then media reports and official records in some cases to allege that the Congress routinely resorted to electoral malfeasance since the first elections were held in 1951-52 and Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister.

Congress leader and then Union minister Abul Kalam Azad was made to win from Rampur Lok Sabha constituency in 1972 by the transfer of votes polled by the candidate who came third, while B R Ambedkar was made to lose from his seat as over 73,000 votes were rejected by the administration, he claimed.

He added that the Election Commission ordered a repoll in many booths in Amethi, from when former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had contested, due to proven electoral malpractices.

In this context, he cited the annulment of Indira Gandhi's 1971 election win by the Allahabad High Court in 1975 for unethical electoral means, which led her to impose the Emergency.

Poll rigging was commonplace, and an economic vertical thrived in some states on account of bribery and other irregularities, he claimed.

The then Congress government under Nehru ensured that the National Conference candidates were elected unopposed from most of the seats in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls in 1951 as candidatures of rival candidates, especially of Praja Parishad, were rejected, he said. PTI KR KR KSS KSS