Tejashwi committed crime by keeping two voter IDs: BJP

New Delhi: The BJP alleged on Sunday that RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has committed a crime by keeping two voter IDs, noting that his Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number he cited at a presser was different from the one he officially carries.

A day after the Elections Commission refuted his claim that his name was missing from the draft electoral rolls in Bihar, the BJP sharpened its attack on the opposition leader.

"The Congress and RJD have been thoroughly exposed... Did you (Yadav) lie under oath? Did you present wrong facts to the Election Commission," BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra asked at a press conference.

Patra noted that the voter ID the RJD leader had submitted in his 2020 poll affidavit was different from the one he had mentioned on Saturday to claim that his name was missing from the electoral rolls prepared after the contentious Special Intensive Revision exercise.

He accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his ally Yadav of resorting to lies to weaken and insult constitutional institutions like the Election Commission and to dent India's stature.

If a party leader like Yadav carries two voter IDs, then what will its workers be doing, the BJP spokesperson asked, claiming that it showed RJD members cast votes at two places to inflate support for their party.

Mocking Gandhi, he said his claim of having an atom bomb to expose rigging of polls by the BJP with alleged connivance by the EC was a "damp squib" like Pakistan's nuclear threat to India.

The desperation of Gandhi and Yadav, he claimed, was not to save constitutional bodies or the country but to save their families.

All the likes of Sonia Gandhi and Lalu Prasad Yadav want is for their children to settle down in politics, he said.

Patra claimed that not a single complaint has come from booth agents of political parties about any name being deleted from electoral rolls in Bihar.

Yadav's "lies" about EPIC are a harbinger of his party's epic defeat in the assembly polls, expected to be held in October-November, he added.

Tejashwi Yadav on Saturday claimed that his name was missing in the draft electoral rolls published in Bihar and, when met with a rebuttal, insisted that there was a "change" in EPIC number allotted to him.

At the press conference, Patra also cited NCP (Sharad Pawar) leader Jitendra Ahwad's reported comment that Sanatan Dharma has ruined India to hit out at opposition parties for insulting Hindus.

Sanatan is truth and what he has said is like insulting truth and Shiva, Patra claimed.

He asked Sharad Pawar and his daughter and Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule to explain if Ahwad spoke for the party or offered his personal opinion.

Ahwad had sought to draw a distinction between Sanatan Dharma and Hinduism, alleging that the former targeted Maratha empire founder Shivaji and iconic Dalit leader B R Ambedkar.

Asked about Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's claim about India not being able to present evidence to link Pakistan to the Pahalgam attack, Patra cited media reports that funeral in absentia was held across the border for a terrorist recently killed by security forces.

Various Congress leaders keep making remarks favouring Pakistan, he said.