New Delhi: Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Sunday shared a 2015 video of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, in which the latter is seen demanding an intensive revision of electoral rolls over alleged large-scale irregularities and bogus or duplicate entries in Delhi’s voter lists.
The video has added to the ongoing political confrontation over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is using past statements by Opposition leaders to counter allegations of irregularities in the ongoing exercise.
Sharing the old video on X, Rijiju took a swipe at Kejriwal and senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, suggesting that the former Delhi Chief Minister’s earlier demand for a thorough revision of voter lists contradicted the Opposition’s current position on the process.
“After Kapil Sibal, once again Kejriwal Ji’s old video demanding SIR exposed himself and Rahul Gandhi Ji,” Rijiju wrote in his post.
In January 2015, ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections, Kejriwal and the AAP had publicly raised concerns about what they described as serious discrepancies in the electoral rolls, alleging a substantial number of duplicate entries and that the same individuals possess multiple voter identity cards.
At the time, Kejriwal had claimed that approximately 3.96 lakh to four lakh people allegedly held around 11.5 lakh voter cards, suggesting that some individuals possessed between two and four cards each.
The AAP had also raised questions about similarities between the electoral rolls in Delhi and those in neighbouring states, including Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The party alleged that such discrepancies could facilitate the movement of people across state boundaries to influence voting during elections.
As part of its campaign against the alleged irregularities, the AAP submitted data and CDs containing suspected duplicate voter entries to the Election Commission.
Rijiju’s latest post comes amid sustained criticism from Opposition parties, including the AAP and the Congress, over the ongoing SIR exercise. Opposition leaders have described the process as “vote chori”, demanded its cancellation and called for the restoration of the previous electoral rolls. They have also sought the resignation or arrest of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The ruling party has argued that leaders who previously demanded the removal of bogus voters and correction of electoral rolls are now opposing an exercise intended to scrutinise and update voter lists.
This follows another attack by Rijiju on the Congress earlier on Wednesday, when he referred to remarks made by senior advocate and former Union Law Minister Kapil Sibal in Parliament regarding the deletion of names from electoral rolls.
Rijiju made the remarks in a post on X and shared a video of Sibal addressing the House when he was the Union Law Minister. Calling Sibal’s old remarks significant, Rijiju said that they had exposed what he described as the “bogus vote chori drama” of the Congress party.
In his post, Rijiju said: “I don’t like Kapil Sibal as he is always found to be protecting the corrupt, extremists & anti-social elements. For the first time, I like him because he has exposed the bogus vote chori drama of Congress party through his old speech in Parliament as Law Minister!!”
Rijiju’s post came amid the ongoing political confrontation between the BJP and Congress over allegations concerning electoral rolls and the deletion of voters’ names.
He highlighted Sibal’s remarks to question the Congress party’s allegations regarding voter deletions.
By sharing the former Law Minister’s own explanation from Parliament, Rijiju sought to argue that deletion of names from electoral rolls is subject to established categories and that individuals whose names are wrongly deleted have the option to approach election officials for registration.
The Opposition, meanwhile, has continued to question the Election Commission’s handling of the exercise and raised concerns about transparency, accountability and the potential exclusion of eligible voters.
(IANS)
