Lok Sabha Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi has opposed Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh’s statement that a photo ID voter card would be used instead of Aadhaar to determine beneficiaries of social welfare schemes.
“This is not just vote theft, it is rights theft,” he has criticized.
Union Minister for the Ministry of Panchayati Raj Rajeev Ranjan Singh (a.k.a. Lalan Singh) had said a few days ago that, to receive the financial benefits of social welfare schemes operating under his ministry, a photo voter ID card would be used instead of Aadhaar, along with mandatory biometric verification. Sharing a video containing his remarks on X, Rahul Gandhi said in a post on Friday:
The Union Minister’s statement that beneficiaries of government welfare schemes will be identified through voter ID cards instead of Aadhaar is a deep conspiracy of the Modi government.
Under the name of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list, the names of millions have been removed from the electoral rolls. If this is not stopped, many more names will be deleted.
Whose names are being targeted the most in SIR? The names of those who want the BJP rule to come to an end are being removed.
Conspiracy exposed: The country’s voter list should be in the hands of an impartial Election Commission. But it is in the hands of Gyanesh Kumar, who is acting as a puppet of the Modi government. We have exposed, with evidence, his collusion with the BJP in ‘vote theft.’
The voter list being prepared in such a way that BJP supporters form the majority is now going to determine the benefits of government schemes.
Not only voting rights but other rights are also being taken away through name deletion. In an “appropriated” democracy, people become invisible. Today it is local government schemes; tomorrow it could be ration supplies, pensions, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, subsidies, and reservations. This is a permanent arrangement to steal elections and cling to power. Financial benefits for the poor should not be determined through voter identity cards. Rahul has said that we will never allow this.
Did Sonia engage in vote theft for the NDA alliance? BJP asks mockingly
“The BJP has sarcastically asked: if the National Democratic Alliance’s election success rate was highest during the tenure of former Chief Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath, who was appointed under the previous Congress government rather than the current Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, then did Congress senior leader Sonia Gandhi engage in ‘vote theft’ for the National Democratic Alliance?”
V.S. Sampath served as the country’s 18th Chief Election Commissioner from June 11, 2012, to January 15, 2015. Referring to this, BJP spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari said in an X post:
During the tenure of V.S. Sampath, who was appointed Chief Election Commissioner under the previous Congress government, the National Democratic Alliance won 75 percent of the elections held. Currently, during Gyanesh Kumar’s tenure, this has fallen to 66 percent.
Compared with V.S. Sampath’s tenure, the BJP alliance’s success rate is lower now. Looking at it according to Rahul’s “brilliant” logic, Pradeep Bhandari asked whether Sonia Gandhi engaged in vote theft for the BJP alliance.