BJP creating voter list to its liking by removing backwards, Dalits: Rahul

Mumbai/New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged on Wednesday that in the name of SIR, the BJP is creating a voter list to its liking by removing backwards, Dalits, the deprived and the poor from it, and claimed that the Election Commission (EC) is responsible for this “murder of democracy”.

Gandhi’s remarks came over a social media post of the Congress, in which the party shared a video purportedly of the brother-in-law of a booth level officer (BLO) who died on Tuesday after allegedly consuming a poisonous substance.

The man in the video claimed that the deceased was put under pressure and efforts were being made to remove the names of Other Backward Classes (OBC) voters from the electoral roll.

“’Delete the names of OBC voters, or you will lose your job’,” the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha said in a post in Hindi on X, quoting the man in the video. “Pressure, threats... and the result? Finally, suicide,” he added.

In the name of SIR, the BJP is creating a voter list to its liking by removing backward, Dalit, deprived and poor voters from it, Gandhi alleged.

The EC is responsible for this “murder of democracy”, he claimed.

In its post, the Congress said, “’Delete the names of OBC voters or your job will be lost.’ This was said to Vipin Yadav, a BLO in Gonda, Uttar Pradesh, after which he committed suicide.”

Yadav’s family has claimed that the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) and lekhpal were pressuring him to delete the names of OBC voters during the SIR of the electoral rolls, the Congress said.

When Yadav refused to do so, he was threatened with dismissal and arrest, the party said in its post in Hindi.

This is the reality of SIR, which is forcing BLOs to commit suicide, it claimed.