Congress alleges ‘conspiracy’ in Gujarat roll revision

Sharpening its attack on the BJP and Election Commission (EC) over the ongoing special intensive review (SIR) of electoral roles, Gujarat Pradesh Congress president Amit Chavda on Thursday alleged that under a well-planned conspiracy, an attempt has been made to snatch away the voting rights of lakhs of genuine voters by the ruling dispensation in Gujarat.

Pointing out that when Gujarat’s draft SIR list was published in December, around 74 lakh voters’ names were cancelled. Chavda said the EC had declared January 18 as the last date for submission of Form 7. “Until January 15, negligible Form 7s had come to the EC, but there was a sudden surge in submission since January 15 and the EC on January 22 told us that 12,59,229 Form 7 objections were received,” Chavda said adding that Congress had flagged the “conspiracy” to the EC on January 17 and had sought the CCTV footage of the people who submitted these Form 7 objections on January 18.

Chavda said that while a significant number of objections were raised under fictitious names, people have even filed affidavits stating that objections against voters have been made in their name without their knowledge and consent.

Chavda alleged that the EC had entertained this only because it did not have the courage to stand up to the BJP, which resulted in huge wastage of public resources and harassment of people.

“In Anand district, 69,057 Form 7s were received, of which only 747 forms were accepted; in Kheda district, a total of 1,35,174 Form 7s were received, of which 1,025 were accepted; and in Bharuch district, 91,169 Form 7 objections were received, from which 804 were accepted —meaning that 99% of Form 7s were rejected,” Chavda said adding that going by the pattern, it can be estimated that 95% to 99% of wrong objections in Gujarat would have been rejected.

Underlining that filing false Form 7 applications is a criminal offence and called for prosecution of the conspirators and colluding officials. He affirmed that Congress would take this fight to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Reacting to the allegations, Gujarat BJP spokesperson Anil Patel said while the verification of Form 7 objections was still going, Congress should have waited until the publication of the list before starting to protest. “It is only because Congress has started smelling defeat in the forthcoming elections that it has started to make such noises,” Patel added.