IANS
New Delhi, Jul 4: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Saturday rubbished Congress' allegation of malpractices in the preparation of voters' list in Gujarat, pointing out that the electoral rolls were made under the supervision of the Election Commission (EC).
"Preparation and revision of electoral rolls in all the states is undertaken by officials under the supervision of the Election Commission of India," BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said in a statement.
She said that Congress allegation that irregularities while making the voters list were committed by state officials under influence of political leadership, "betrays the party's contempt for the Election Commission's role and responsibility."
"The Congress party's demand that EC should immediately send a team to the state to investigate also reveals their desperation to use institutions to do their bit at their (Congress) call," she said.
Sitharaman said people of Gujarat had repeatedly defeated the Congress in elections and the party should learn to accept peoples' verdict with modesty.
Accusing the Congress of double-speak, Sitharaman alleged that the party had not paid attention to complaints of malpractices in preparation of Delhi electoral rolls.
"Several instances of voters with identity cards who had been sent away without being able to vote in Delhi and Maharashtra have gone unnoticed by the Congress," she said.
"In Assam where the Congress is in power for more than 10 years now, names of people from across the border, in tens of thousand have crept into the voters' list. The Congress pretends to be blissfully unaware of this malpractices," she said.
The spokesperson said the Congress "should allow institutions to function without casting aspersions on them."
A delegation of Congress leaders had met top Election Commission officials here Friday and urged them to review the voters' list in Gujarat to weed out "bogus voters".
The Congress said there were large scale irregularities in the voters' list in the state.
Congress spokesman Manish Tewari claimed that nearly 30 lakh names of voters were bogus and raised questions over the results of the 2007 assembly elections and the 2009 Lok Sabha polls in Gujarat.