A day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi threatened the BJP with yet another revelation on alleged ‘vote chori’, the saffron party has sharpened its attack against him, with the ruling party leaders playing down his charges, and counter attacking the grand old party.
On Tuesday, the BJP targeted Gandhi over the ‘discovery’ of two EPIC IDs of Pawan Khera, a Congress party veteran and its media and publicity department chairman.
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters here, party spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari called out the Congress’ duplicity on voter fraud claims, saying that Khera’s episode shows that the party which raises alarm over ‘vote chori’ is itself deeply involved in the fraud.
He also posed five questions to the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha over Khera’s EPIC ID controversy — Was Rahul aware of this fraud? Will he call him vote chor? Will he admit that Congress is opposing SIR just to escape attention from vote fraud? Will he apologise for his mother Sonia Gandhi’s getting a voter ID by illicit means? Is there any vote chori racket going on within the party, and that is why they are alleging vote chori?
The BJP leader termed it a blatant violation of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951, which mandates that no citizen can vote twice and demanded action over the ‘illegal and criminal’ act.
He also demanded that competent authorities be roped in to probe alleged irregularities within the ‘corrupt’ party. Claiming complicity of the entire ecosystem, he accused the Gandhi and the Congress party of running a voter racket inside the party and asked why party leaders are being provided with illegal voter IDs and asked whether this was the outcome of their disdain and scorn for the poor and marginalised voters.
He also questioned Gandhi’s silence over the controversy and said that the whole Vadra-Gandhi family can’t absolve itself from it, citing Sonia Gandhi’s illegal act of getting a voter ID before becoming a citizen of India decades ago.
“Rahul must come clean on whether he was aware of this illegal way of getting a voter ID, will he act against such blatant irregularity, and show Pawan Khera the door?” Bhandari asked.
Bhandari demanded that Gandhi and the Congress party must apologise for their conspiracy to instil false fear and anxiety among the citizens and cast a shadow over the electoral rolls.
“Previously, they claimed rigging in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), then cried foul over Maharashtra Assembly elections, and now are raising fake alarms over voter fraud. Rahul and the Congress party must put an end to his plot and conspiracy against democracy,” he added.
On Monday, after Gandhi said that his party would soon come out with a “hydrogen bomb” of revelations about “vote chori” following which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not be able to show his face to the people of the country, the BJP reacted, calling him an “irresponsible” person.
“How are the atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb related to the elections? Why is Rahul Gandhi demeaning himself as the Leader of the Opposition? The nation should understand, Rahul Gandhi is irresponsible,” BJP MP from Patna Sahib and former union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said following Gandhi’s announcement of “hydrogen bomb” of revelations on vote theft.
“I want to tell the BJP people. Have you heard of anything bigger than an atom bomb, it is a hydrogen bomb. BJP people, be ready, a hydrogen bomb is coming. People are soon going to find out the reality of ‘vote chori’,” Gandhi said, adding that after the hydrogen bomb comes, “PM Modi will not be able to show his face to the country.”