Kerala is on the boil over the 'Vote Theft' row after CPI(M) and BJP workers clashed in Thrissur district on Tuesday. Left workers had poured black oil on a board featuring Thrissur MP Suresh Gopi after media reports found that numerous bogus names had been added to the voters' list in favour of the BJP MP. Suresh Gopi, the saffron party's only Lok Sabha member ever from the southern state, is under pressure after both the Left and Congress intensified protests against him. After the CPI(M) workers targeted the MP's office, BJP workers organised a counter-march towards the district committee office of the CPI(M), and the police had to intervene to prevent an escalation.
At a time when the BJP remains on the defensive over the 'Vote Theft' allegations, former Union Minister Anurag Thakur was given the responsibility of taking the offensive to the Opposition. The Hamirpur MP claimed on Wednesday that a large number of fake voters exist across Lok Sabha seats held by prominent Opposition leaders. Among the seats mentioned by Thakur was Kerala's Wayanad—a seat that elected Rahul Gandhi twice before being represented by the incumbent, his sister, Priyanka Gandhi.
Also mentioned were the seats of Diamond Harbour, Kannauj, and Mainpuri, currently held by the Trinamool's Abhishek Banerjee, the Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav, and his wife Dimple Yadav, respectively. The BJP leader also claimed that his party's investigation had found a similar fake voter trend in Tamil Nadu's Kolathur assembly seat, from which Chief Minister M. K. Stalin was elected. He further claimed that 47 voters had been registered in a single house in Rae Bareli, but Rahul and Sonia Gandhi never saw these names.
"Will all these Opposition leaders resign over what they call ‘vote theft’? They want to stop SIR because it will clean up such voter rolls," Thakur asked.
The BJP had reportedly found that Wayanad has 93,499 doubtful voters. The list includes 20,438 duplicates, 17,450 voters with fake addresses, 4,246 mixed-household entries, and 51,365 added through mass registration. Meanwhile, in Abhishek Banerjee's Diamond Harbour, there were around 2.6 lakh doubtful voters, including 1.55 lakh with fake addresses. Kannauj and Mainpuri had 2,91,798 and 2,55,914 such voters, Thakur alleged, adding that M. K. Stalin's Assembly seat had around 20,000 such entries.
Addressing the media at the BJP headquarters, Thakur said that Congress wants to belittle the votes of the people of India as they have repeatedly rejected them. "They lose and blame the Election Commission and the BJP. They spread confusion about the Constitution during the elections and now they are lying again. They have no issue left for the elections." "In the Maharashtra elections, Congress had said that voter names were being increased. The Congress party is insulting the voters. Rahul Gandhi's figures and he himself are liars," he added.
