'Idea of equality behind SIR process, Supreme Court has upheld electoral exercise': BJP leaders in Lok Sabha

New Delhi: Leading the charge of the BJP-NDA MPs in the Lok Sabha in the discussion on electoral reforms, union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said that this is not the first time that the Special Intensive Revision exercise has been undertaken, and that the idea behind it is that a vote should belong to a single person only.

“This is not the first time SIR is being implemented in the country. It has happened before, maybe not in the last decade. The basic idea behind SIR is that one vote should belong to just one person. We have stuck to the principle of ‘one man, one vote, one value’,” Meghwal said.

The debate went on for over six hours on Tuesday in the Lok Sabha, and is likely to take place for a few hours on Wednesday. Union home minister Amit Shah will be giving a reply at the end of the debate.

He said that while Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi carries the Constitution, he does not read it. “The Supreme Court has upheld the SIR process in Bihar and said that the Election Commission has the legal authority to take up the process which will clean up voters’ list,” Meghwal said.

Outspoken MP Nishikant Dubey said that EVMs were introduced by Rajiv Gandhi, and that he is proud to be from the RSS.

“Several opposition leaders have spoken about EVMs, but I want to tell the House that the EVMs were first introduced by former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, who brought them as part of a pilot project in 1987. In 1991, the Narasimha Rao government introduced EVMs for voting,” Dubey said.

Dubey also said that select committees in 1961 as well as 1971 had recommended a Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls. “The 1961 committee, infact, asked that EVMs be used to avoid rigging,” he said.

Firing a salvo, Dubey said that Indira Gandhi had won an election by “vote chori”. “Congress has tarnished the Constitution of India … Indira Gandhi won Raebareli by ‘vote chori’,” Dubey said.

BJP MP Sanjay Jaiswal says that the Opposition wants to divert attention from their electoral losses by raising the issue of SIR and vote-chori.

"The first time vote-chori took place was in 1947 when the entire Congress Working Committee was with Sardar Patel, yet he was not made the Prime Minister,” he said, adding that the 1975 Emergency and 1987 Kashmir elections are examples of Congress’s 'vote chori'.