Suresh Gopi rejects voter fraud allegations, urges politicians with election complaints to approach SC

Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Tourism Suresh Gopi on Sunday brushed aside allegations of voter fraud and complaints of fake affidavit in his parliamentary constituency and asserted that he is not answerable to the allegations and that it is the Election Commission of India (ECI) that must respond to allegations of voter list manipulation in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Thrissur.

He urged politicians raising complaints about the voters list in the recent election to take their grievances to the Supreme Court.

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Speaking to media persons in Thrissur on Sunday, after paying tributes at the Sakthan Thampuran statue, Gopi said there is no need for him to answer to the voters’ list manipulation charges raised by Congress and the Left parties, and the Election Commission of India would give them a reply in this regard.
” Nothing doing”, he said. “I don’t think I should respond to the allegations of voter fraud. The Election Commission will answer your questions in its press conference today. I’m a Union Minister, I have no role in this matter,” said Suresh Gopi.
Deriding media persons, he added, “If the Election Commission takes the issue to the Supreme Court, you go and ask the apex court.”

Dubbing them as “vanaranmar” (a reference to the monkey warriors from ancient epics like the Ramayana) the leader urged politicians in Thrissur raising complaints about the voters list in the recent election to take their grievances to the Supreme Court.
It is for the first time that Gopi was responding to the allegations of voters’ list manipulation charges against him in connection with the Lok Sabha polls last year.
Both the UDF and LDF are alleging large-scale voters’ list tampering in the Thrissur Lok Sabha from where Suresh Gopi won. Congress leaders have approached the police with a complaint while CPI leader and the LDF candidate VS Sunilkumar submitted his complaint to the State Chief Electoral Officer.

Senior Congress leader and former Thrissur MP TN Prathapan last week filed a complaint seeking a criminal investigation against Suresh Gopi on the charge of filing a false affidavit claiming more than six months’ domicile in the Lok Sabha constituency ahead of filing his nomination in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Earlier, CPI leader V S Sunil Kumar, who was the runner-up in the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency, alleged that there was clear manipulation in the electoral roll, which facilitated Gopi’s victory in the Thrissur constituency.

Reacting to the Union minister’s comment that “a few vanarans(monkeys) have jumped out raising allegations”, Thrissur District Congress Committee (DCC) president Joseph Tajet said his remarks on the voters’ list controversy were nothing but “an insult to the people of Thrissur. “The Congress party’s culture does not permit them to respond in the same language,” he added.
“Those words were spoken while looking into the mirror. His first response after so many days of silence has sadly been to humiliate the very people of Thrissur whom he represents,” he said.