Chandigarh, October 14
Former Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar today accused Congress of targeting constitutional institutions such as the Election Commission after losing its support base across the country. Speaking to the media outside the office of Punjab’s Chief Electoral Officer, he said the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls had been completed in Punjab without the same Congress raising any objection to the exercise. Jakhar praised Punjab’s Chief Electoral Officer for completing the revision of electoral rolls in accordance with the rules. Sharing voter figures from the Assembly constituencies represented by the current and former Punjab Congress presidents, the Chief Minister, the Finance Minister and the AAP president, he said none of these leaders had raised any objection neither in their own constituencies nor in the state.
Jakhar said political parties had collectively appointed 89,000 Booth Level Agents (BLAs) in Punjab for the SIR exercise. According to him, the Election Commission shared information with these agents at every stage and obtained their written agreement regarding the process. He claimed that throughout the exercise, not a single eligible voter in Punjab had come forward to say that their name had been wrongly deleted from the electoral rolls.
The BJP leader said Punjab Congress leaders were nevertheless travelling to Delhi to protest against SIR. He added that AAP leaders had also protested against the exercise in Chandigarh on October 10, while representatives of both parties had thanked the Chief Electoral Officer on October 12.
Jakhar said the opposition was turning the exercise into a political issue to regain its lost support, even though, according to him, it was being conducted through a uniform procedure across the country and similar exercises had taken place several times before. He alleged that Congress lacked grassroots workers in most states and had failed to appoint BLAs in those areas. Instead of strengthening its organisation, he said, the party was concentrating its efforts on weakening constitutional institutions.
“If SIR has been completed properly in Punjab, how can the same exercise, conducted under the same rules, be wrong in other states?” Jakhar asked. He urged the opposition to bring forward any case in which an eligible voter’s name had been wrongly deleted. He reiterated that eligible voters could still have their names added to the electoral rolls. “SIR does not mean deleting votes; it means correcting and updating electoral rolls,” he said.
Taking a dig at Congress leaders in the Rajya Sabha, who are still calling the shots in the party,Jakhar said those who had spent their entire political careers in the Upper House without ever contesting an election knew little about how voters were registered. He questioned how removing the names of deceased voters, voters who had shifted their residence, or duplicate entries could be considered illegal. The real issue, he said, was whether any eligible voter had been wrongly excluded. Such voters should come forward so the Election Commission could restore their registration.
Meanwhile, expressing grief over the murder of Parminder Singh Jhota in Mansa, Sunil Jakhar said Bhagwant Singh Mann had lost the right to call himself Chief Minister. He alleged that drugs were being sold under the government’s patronage. Jakhar questioned how the person accused of killing Jhota had obtained an arms licence despite having four cases registered against him. He asked whether this indicated that drug traffickers enjoyed government protection. He further alleged that the AAP government’s agenda was to create such fear in society that no one dared to raise their voice, allowing what he described as its “system of plunder” to continue.
