Lucknow: Questioning the rationale behind Election Commission’s Special Summary Revision (SSR) of electoral rolls citing instances where voters’ list was ‘heavily compromised’, Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday said he is not opposed to SIR or SSR but is against the conspiracies that BJP is hatching behind the two exercises.The comments came at a news conference where a host of BJP, BSP, RLD and ASP functionaries and members joined SP. The list included names of former BJP minister and Rajya Sabha member Rajpal Saini, former BSP candidate from Ghaziabad Nand Kishore Pundeer, Azad Samaj Party’s (ASP’s) Kamal Gautum, BJP state executive member Harveer Malik, Sanjeev Pradhan of RLD from Shamli along with Rajendra Malik and Rajendra Singh of RLD who joined SP with hundreds of their supporters.SP national general secretary Shivpal Yadav welcomed the entrants and said that senior functionaries were leaving BJP to join SP, which indicated that people’s trust in SP was growing. “This is just the beginning; more functionaries from BJP, BSP and RLD will soon join the SP to oust the saffron brigade,” Shivpal said. SP functionary Prof Sudhir Panwar, who is from Shamli, welcomed the BJP functionaries to the party fold.“When the Election Commission of India spent thousands of crores of rupees and completed the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls a couple of months ago, what is the need for SSR?” Akhilesh asked.Akhilesh emphasised that SP was not against SIR or SSR but would oppose any conspiracy to manipulate the electoral rolls. “We have deputed PDA praharis to facilitate SIR at the booth level. We were neither against SIR nor against SSR. But we are against any conspiracy to tailor the electoral rolls to suit the BJP,” Akhilesh said, alleging collusion between BJP and ECI on grounds that despite complaints backed with irrefutable documentary evidence, no penal action has been initiated even against a single person for contaminating electoral rolls.Akhilesh presented before the media one Vikas Yadav, claiming that his name was registered at 12 different places in the electoral rolls. “We know that he is an honest man and will vote only once. We are sure that BJP will vote in the remaining 11 places. These are the instances that we are opposed to,” Akhilesh said, adding: “What was the purpose of SIR if such massive and glaring anomalies have been introduced during the exercise?”Akhilesh said the donation theft at Ram temple in Ayodhya left the devoted Hindus agitated. “Women are feeling cheated by the BJP govt and so are the farmers and the middle class. Gen Z is already voicing its concern over manipulation of voters list; now Gen Alpha is also unhappy with the BJP. It is noticeable that BJP’s vote base is drifting away,” Akhilesh said.Hitting out at BJP’s ‘One Nation, One Election’ plan, he said the idea was that BJP wanted to indulge in large-scale corruption in one go, secure control over govts across the country and avoid being held accountable in repeated elections.
