Bengaluru: AICC General Secretary and Karnataka Congress in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala on Monday accused the BJP and JD(S) of adopting a “double standard” over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, challenging both parties to clarify their stand on similar exercises carried out in other states.
In a post on social media platform X, Surjewala said it was “strange hypocrisy” that Karnataka BJP leaders, along with Union Minister and JD(S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy, were opposing the SIR process in the state.
He said the Congress welcomes their opposition to the exercise and challenged the BJP and JD(S) to publicly declare that the deletion of 47 lakh voters in Bihar, 84 lakh voters in West Bengal, and 11 lakh voters in Assam during previous SIR exercises before Assembly elections was wrong.
Surjewala further dared the two parties to state that the election results in those states should be set aside if they believed the SIR process was flawed.
He also asked the BJP and JD(S) to declare whether they believe the SIR process is “anti-democratic, unconstitutional and an assault on democracy,” and whether it should be scrapped across the country.
Questioning the Election Commission’s decision to undertake the revision, Surjewala alleged that the SIR exercise was, in reality, a “vote deletion exercise” aimed at undermining democratic rights and called on the BJP and JD(S) to make their position clear.
