New Delhi: BJP National General Secretary Smriti Irani on Saturday came in support of the open letter written by at least 124 former civil servants to “the citizens of India”, saying that the veteran officers understand that the country’s democratic framework “does not run on blind faith”.
The former officers who wrote the letter in favour of the Election Commission’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voters list, have been directly or indirectly involved earlier in India’s electoral process, and have condemned the use of “rigged” without evidence.
In a post on social media platform X, Smriti Irani asked: “Do you doubt the system, or do you only doubt the result?”
“In an unsparing open letter, 124 former IAS, IFS, and Allied Service officers have defended the Election Commission of India and statutory roll revisions like the Special Intensive Revision. Their message directly calls out the Opposition for its desperate attempts to undermine our constitutional pillars,” she said.
The BJP leader added: “Having conducted elections across decades, these veteran officers understand that our democratic framework does not run on blind faith. It relies on verifiable checks, dual-party seals, and strict judicial oversight.”
Smriti Irani said that the people of India see straight through the “Opposition’s hollow narrative”.
“You cannot celebrate the machinery when it hands you a victory and cry fraud the instant the ballot rejects you,” the BJP leader said while hitting out at the Opposition.
Meanwhile, the letter by the former civil servants said: “We have conducted or studied India’s elections all through our lives. We prepared the rolls, trained polling parties, sealed strong rooms and supervised counts. We belong to no party. We write because one word, ‘rigged’, is now thrown at our elections without evidence, and every repetition wounds democratic trust that belongs to all of us.”
“If the system you call rigged is the same one that handed you your victories, ask yourself whether it is the system you doubt, or only the result,” the letter added.
Names included former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal, former Secretaries of Ministries and departments of the Union government like R. D. Kapur, Samirendra Chatterjee, Gopal Krishna, Vivek Bhardwaj, Anand Kumar; former Ambassadors Shyamala B. Causik, Bhaswati Mukherjee, Yogesh K. Gupta, Prabhu Dayal, Anil Trigunayat, J. K. Tripathi, Deepak Vohra, among several ex-special secretaries, erstwhile Chief Secretaries of states, Director Generals of Police, and other senior officers.
–IANS–
