BJP's Premkumar Shukla defends SIR as vital for democracy, accuses Congress of blaming poll body for defeats

BJP national spokesperson Premkumar Shukla targeted the Congress and INDIA bloc parties over SIR and the "vote chori" (vote theft) allegations. Shukla said it is the Election Commission's job to answer the allegations and questions linked to SIR and vote theft, but the responsibility of proving a lie to be a lie will have to be discharged.

According to Shukla, when many people repeat a lie again and again, people begin to accept it as the truth. He said this is why the BJP has taken on the responsibility of proving a lie to be a lie. He said the Congress is putting the blame for its defeats on the Election Commission.

Shukla said opposition parties are trying to give the SIR process a political colour. According to him, SIR, the purification of the electoral rolls, is necessary to strengthen democracy. He claimed the process has been carried out 12 times in the country since Independence, 10 of them during Congress rule. Despite this, he said, opposition parties are now levelling political allegations over it.

The opposition is alleging that the names of 13 crore voters were deleted from the electoral rolls. Shukla responded with figures for different categories. He claimed that, as per rules, the names removed were those of 6.3 crore migrant voters, 3 crore voters who were absent during the survey, 2.8 crore dead voters and 1 crore voters with duplicate entries. He also said that in Maharashtra, 17.63 lakh duplicate voters and 34.81 lakh dead voters are on the rolls.

Targeting Rahul Gandhi, Shukla said the Congress has lost 56 Assembly elections under his leadership. According to him, the party did not get the expected success in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, 2019 and 2024 either. He said the Congress has been out of power for a long time in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Despite this, he said, it is blaming the Election Commission for its defeats.

Shukla claimed that the Modi government will get the delimitation Bill passed before the 2029 Lok Sabha elections and that the next election will be held with women's reservation. On Uttar Pradesh, he claimed that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will return to power in the coming Assembly election. He said the slogan this time is to cross 300 seats and that it will certainly succeed.

Referring to the rally of the Congress and the INDIA bloc at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi, Shukla said it had been claimed that 10 lakh people would attend, but only 20,000 to 25,000 actually gathered. He called the rally "Rahul Leela" and said it was a dismal flop. According to Shukla, traders suffered heavy losses because of the "Rahul Leela", and those who harm the general public will lose elections.

Shukla alleged that attempts are being made to spread unrest in the country through foreign funding and NGOs. He said that by opposing SIR, the opposition is misleading the public.