BJP's Anurag Thakur
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: The BJP has shot back at Rahul Gandhi’s ‘vote chori’ charge by by questioning the voter lists in his own constituencies. BJP leader Anurag Thakur asked Gandhi if he knew how many voters are fake in Wayanad as well as Rae Bareli
In a press conference at the party headquarters, Thakur said that apart from the Gandhis seats, Diamond Harbour in West Bengal from which Abhishek Banerjee is elected also has fake voters and went on to read some out.
“In Rae Bareli, names such as Mohammad Kaif Khan are registered in several booths, including booth numbers 83, 151 and 218. At house no 189, polling station 131, as many as 47 voter IDs were registered. In Bengal’s Diamond Harbour, at house no 0011, booth number 103, voters of several religions were registered,” Thakur alleged.
He further said that Gandhi was making these allegations of voter theft after consistently losing elections. “If there is a record of losing elections 90 times under someone’s leadership, then it is Rahul Gandhi. Even within the party, questions are raised about his leadership. When he loses elections, he raises questions about EVMs or blames the voters. Congress said, EVM is rigged and they should be banned. Then they said EVMs can be hacked remotely. After every defeat, Congress kept finding new excuses, and blamed EVMs, Election Commission and constitutional institutions. They will lose the Bihar elections, and so, are making false allegations already,” Thakur said.
He said that the Congress did voter theft in 1952 when it joined hands with CPI to defeat Bhimrao Ambedkar.
“In 1952, Congress and CPI joined hands to defeat Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar. Congress laid the foundation of electoral corruption in that very election. Check the records: 74,333 votes were rejected, while Ambedkar ji lost by just 14,561 votes. Congress ensured that a constitution maker, a Dalit leader, was eliminated in the very first election. Imagine, the one who created the constitution was defeated by the Congress family through electoral fraud,” Anurag alleged.
He also questioned Bengal chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee. “I want to ask Mamata Banerjee – in the Lok Sabha in 2005, she threw documents claiming that the voter list included illegal Bangladeshi migrants. Now, when we are trying to clean that mess, she is creating hurdles. Was she lying then or is she lying now,” he asked.