NEW DELHI: Led by Congress and Trinamool Congress, opposition parties Monday demanded a discussion in Parliament on alleged discrepancies in voter lists, with Rahul Gandhi raising the issue in Lok Sabha.
Bringing up the matter during zero hour, Rahul said several states had found discrepancies in voter lists. “Voter lists are being questioned across country and the entire opposition has been demanding a discussion on the matter. Questions have been raised by opposition in one voice in every state, including Maharashtra,” he said. Congress, however, failed to bring it up in Rajya Sabha when party president Mallikarjun Kharge was not allowed to raise the matter.
Later, Kharge posted on X, “The abrupt and unwarranted deletion of voters, presence of duplicate EPIC numbers, and other such crucial issues affecting integrity of our electoral process require urgent attention and discussion in Parliament.” SP, AAP and RJD too said it was an extremely serious matter and Parliament needed to take it up.
TMC’s Saugata Roy demanded a thorough revision of voter lists, particularly ahead of assembly elections in Bengal and Assam next year. “There are some serious flaws. This has been pointed out with respect to Maharashtra, which had inflated voter lists. This was pointed out in Haryana. They are now trying to jump into Bengal and Assam where elections are due next year,” Roy claimed.
Party MP Kalyan Banerjee sought action against EC and said the poll body had “failed” to conduct fair and transparent elections over the past few years.
He said the West Bengal CM had already drawn the EC’s attention to numerous instances of “duplicate” voter cards.
Nadda flags oppn bid to raise matters via Rule 267
Leader of the House in RS J P Nadda Monday said govt is ready for discussion on any issue and questioned opposition’s intent over trying to raise matters through Rule 267 which calls for suspension of scheduled business to discuss urgent matters.
He termed practice of opposition MPs giving notices under Rule 267 despite elaborate rulings by the chairman on the issue a “vicious design to demean Parliament”.
Harivansh did not allow leader of opposition Mallikarjun Kharge to make his submission. Opposition MPs then protested for a while before walking out.
Condemning the walkout, Nadda said opposition was not interested in debate and when their notices were rejected by the chair based on previous rulings, they wanted to give an impression that govt did not want to answer queries.
“Govt under PM Modi is ready to discuss anything under this roof. But there are rules & regulations for debates in the House,” Nadda said, further adding that MPs will get an opportunity to raise their issues during the debate on Union Budget over the next 10 days.
