NEW DELHI: The BJP on Wednesday hit out at the Congress and other opposition parties over their letter to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on the SIR and other issues, calling it a “dangerous conspiracy” to tarnish India’s democracy and spread anarchy in the country.
“With this, they have made another unsuccessful attempt to attack democracy. The BJP vehemently condemns it,” party spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi told reporters, reacting to the opposition parties’ letter to the CJI.
The Congress on Friday said democracy faces the “gravest of threats” from the current dispensation, days after opposition parties urged the Supreme Court to take steps to restore the integrity and accountability of the electoral process.
In a letter to the CJI, leaders of several opposition parties said “democracies turn to anarchies when institutional mechanism fails” and “when the judiciary fails, it indicates a complete breakdown of the Republic”.
The opposition parties demanded that the entire Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process be suspended and launched at a time when the next assembly election is at least five years away. They also raised the alleged misuse of central agencies and sought serious consideration of restoring ballot papers where appropriate.
Sharing the opposition parties’ letter to the CJI in a post on X, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal said the Supreme Court is entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that injustice is not done and the free and fair nature of elections is protected.
Slamming the opposition parties for their letter to the CJI, Trivedi said, “This is a dangerous conspiracy, aimed at tarnishing India’s democracy and spreading anarchy.”
“Having become completely unhinged, these defeated (political) parties now seek to avenge their loss by wishing for India’s ruin and chaos,” he charged.
Taking on the Congress, the BJP spokesperson said the style and language used in their letter to the Supreme Court is “reminiscent” of what was seen during the period of Emergency.
“Is it not true that senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor stated on a TV programme that the Congress benefited from the voter list revision conducted under the SIR process in Kerala as the names of fake voters allegedly added by the Communist parties were removed from the electoral rolls?” Trivedi asked the main opposition party.
In Karnataka, Chief Minister D K Shivakumar is “instructing” the Congress workers to participate “actively and promptly” in the SIR process, while the party is simultaneously “casting aspersions” on the very same process, the BJP leader charged.
Trivedi said that the opposition parties have written to the CJI raising questions on the SIR of the electoral rolls even though the court has upheld the process as “reasonable and legal”.
“They failed to present any factual argument in the courts even once (during hearing of the matter),” he said, alleging that the opposition parties are still raising questions on the SIR because their “dream of capturing power” in the states on the strength of “suspicious voters” appears to be shattering.
PTI
‘Dangerous conspiracy’ to tarnish India’s democracy: BJP slams oppn over letter to CJI
