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Countering Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s speech in Parliament, Rahul Gandhi said that the government is in defensive mode. Rahul alleged that Shah kept silence on important questions like architecture of EVM, transparency of voter list and removal of CJI. At the same time, Gaurav Gogoi called Shah’s speech ‘scripted’ and Manish Tiwari called SIR unconstitutional.
New Delhi. Politics heated up after Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s reply on the issue of electoral reforms and voter list in the Lok Sabha. Leader of opposition in the House, Rahul Gandhi called Amit Shah’s speech defensive. He said, none of my questions were answered. When Gaurav Gogoi called the speech scripted, Manish Tiwari said – Where is the right of SIR in the Constitution?
Rahul Gandhi, who walked out in the middle of the speech, said, I said that a transparent voter list should be given, but he did not give any answer to it. I had demanded that the architecture of EVM should be provided to everyone, but they did not say anything. I said that BJP leaders are voting in Haryana and Bihar (influencing the electoral process), but he maintained silence on this too. Rahul Gandhi also raised questions on the removal of CJI from the process of appointment of election commissioners and the complete ‘immunity’ given to the Election Commission. Hardening his tone, he said, the Election Commission has been given full protection…we are not afraid.
BJP is running on the basis of WhatsApp history: Gaurav Gogoi
Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi described Amit Shah’s speech as scripted. He said, we thought that the Home Minister would answer the questions of the opposition raised in the discussion of the last two days. But I think he was given a script and he kept reading according to that script. Gogoi said Shah ignored the issues raised by Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, Kalyan Banerjee and Supriya Sule. Gogoi questioned Shah’s claim that the voter list was ‘polluted’. Gogoi asked, he said the voter list is polluted, but had he not seen the voter list when he was dreaming of ‘crossing 400’?
Where is the right to SIR in the Constitution?
Congress MP Manish Tiwari raised legal and constitutional questions. He said, the question from where the Election Commission gets the power and authority to conduct SIR (Special Intensive Revision) in the entire country was not answered. Tiwari argued that Articles 347 and 324 of the Constitution of India do not give such power to the Election Commission. Overall, the opposition says that in his speech the Home Minister has tried to avoid the serious questions being raised on the electoral process by taking the help of history and technical arguments.
